DCML digest #936

[Don Rosa]

From: Petri Kanninen <pkannine at cc.hut.fi>
>>>I've been reading Rosa's new Gyro story a couple of times now and started
to wonder how superhelium actually works.

It works just as I want it to work, in such a manner as to make the plot
work out just the way I wish it to. Convenient, eh?
Can you explain how all of Gyro's other inventions work?!

>>>When Gyro demonstrates it to
Donald he says that it forms a solid film when contacted with metal.

If that's what Gyro says, then your translator is not following my script. I
said that it forms a solid film *beyond* the metal... when it *no longer* is
in contact with the metal -- quite the opposite.

>>>>when Helper punctures the film gas starts to come out. But shouldn't it
have become a solid when it touched the coins inside.

??? It was already touching every coin inside. That's your translator again.

>>>But then again
shouldn't the hole Helper made close when the gas again has contact with
metal and air.

When you paint a wall and it dries, then if you scratch or damage the wall
and mar the paint, does the paint reseal itself over the scratch and hide it
again? That would be some great paint!
But maybe you mean the escaping gas should seal the hole by solidifying as
it leaves the coins? Shall I invent a reason why it doesn't? Give me 1.37
seconds: A) There is a brief time limit in which the gas will do that,
otherwise it would be useless trying to remove the ship hulls from the
bubbles. B) The gas won't solidify if it's moving too fast, just as rushing
water won't freeze. C) The gas was faulty, exactly as Gyro says, that's why
he would not accept payment D) Etc., etc., etc.

>>> Anyway, this bugs me a lot since I'm desperately
trying to become a chemist in the distant future.

My degree is in engineering, not chemistry. But I suspect that if you ever
actually try to invent the gas described in this story, you *might* be
disappointed.

>>>Also I started to wonder why Scrooge's money didn't go straight to the
quicksand when they crashed down. That thin rock layer couldn't have
survived the impact those moneys gave.

(sigh...)