The Vanilla Ice Cream Effect
Supposedly this is BASED ON A TRUE STORY:
The president of a major Car Company received the following comlaint:
Even though the letter looks preposterous, he sent an engineer to check the situation out. The arrangement was to meet with the letter sender just after dinner time.
The next night, after supper, the engineer with the complainant rode on the vehicle in quuestion and drove to the grocery store. They bought vanilla ice cream and surprisingly, after going back to the vehicle, it wont start for several minutes.
The engineer returned the next night and that time they bought chocolate. The car started right away. The third night they bought strawberry ice cream and again they had no problem starting the car. Lastly, the engineer thought of buying vanilla with the man once again, and the result?
The car wont start.
After careful consideration, the engineer found the logical reason why the car wont start when the owner buys vanilla.
What did the engineer consider:
A. The city where the man lived is an extremely hot location. Perfect for ice cream.
B. Everyone seems to like vanilla ice cream except the weird Pantsmobile.
Okay, I wont keep the answer:
The explanation:
Vanilla ice cream was a popular choice during that time and the grocery store where the man buys his share. Because of this they actually have a place for vanilla just near the express counter.The other flavors on the other hand were stocked on the back of the store and took more time to select and check out.
The location of the flavor matters a lot because this will determine the amount of time that it will take the complainant to get back to his car. What the man was experiencing was vapor lock. This is defined as excess heat boiling the fuel in the fuel line and the resulting air bubbles blocking the flow of fuel until the car has enough time to cool. This means that the faster he gets his ice cream the less time for his car to cool down. When the car was running there was enough pressure to move the bubbles along, but not when the car was trying to start.
What can we learn from this? Sometimes, even crazy sounding situations are logical.
