The Repair

Part 4

4

He had started already the refilling and was now following the blue pressure gauge needle, either closing the tap or opening it again. The editor also came to look.

"It's possible also to refill by scales," the repairman told him. "They put the bottle directly on the scales and release the coolant. When the bottle becomes lighter by the required number of grams indicated by the manufacturer of the refrigerator, then it's time to turn it off. But I use the pressure method. It's somehow better to see the direct physical parameter of the system's functioning. One have to bring the manifold in any case, so why take yet the scales..."

"What should be the pressure?"

"It's zero four. That is, at the inlet to the compressor and in the evaporator, the pressure is minus zero six atmospheres."

"Below atmospheric? I never thought..."

"But the output is still plus four atmospheres approximately. In general, the pressure depends on the coolant. There are dozens of different ones. Theoretically anything in liquid or other sublimable state can be a coolant. This one is almost the same as household liquefied gas, for stoves or lighters, the fact well known to botchers. Cheap and cheerful. Although explosive, for which reason it is banned in many countries. But this gas boils normally at minus ten degrees Celsius, which is considered not enough nowadays. So we keep the pressure in the evaporator below atmospheric, then it would evaporate at minus twenty or even lower. The drawback of this arrangement is when leakage happens somewhere on the evaporator's side, the outside air is sucked in. And there is moisture in the air, which will condense and mix with the coolant. That's while the compressor is working. While it is idling the pressure in the entire system rises and this mixture is released through the fissure. Then comes a new cycle and the air is sucked in again, the mixture is further diluted with water. As a result only water may remain therein instead of coolant. And the water is gurgling. That's why I asked you about it."

"Is it really explosive?"

"Swear to Odin! Imagine a leak right into the refrigerator's box. Mind that this gas has no smell and you will not be able to detect it. So after you not opening the refrigerator at least a night long, by the morning there is an explosive mixture there. Then you approach it with a lit cigarette to take out a bottle of milk, open the door... Ka-boom!"

"I don't smoke."

"Well, anyway, there may be a spark in the circuit of the light bulb, which turns on exactly when the door is being opened. That is, without you around nothing will explode, do not worry."

"Why did you tell me this? Now I would be afraid to open refrigerators."

"Well it could have helped a lot of people. Nearly every third."

Editor crouched down and began to scrutinize the coolant bottle.

"Why doesn't it say 'flammable' here?" he asked suspiciously.

"Hmmm, they don't write a lot of things..."

A minute has passed. Then the editor said: "That disruptive technology..."

"Yes?"

"Did you mean your heating refrigerator again, or were you talking about some other perpetual motion machine?"

"No, about a real fact."

"But in some parallel universe?" asked the editor of a fantasy magazine.

The repairman laughed: "That's more to the point. There, in this parallel universe, was published an interesting magazine called "Science and Life". With a circulation, take a note, three and a half million, all in paper, of course. And then, in the issue number five of 1985 - which, by coincidence, is the year when the agreement on ITER construction was signed - there was a rather large article about non-existent then high-temperature superconductivity. From this article it was clear that at that time absolutely no one knew in which direction to look for this superconductivity. Secondly, it was also clear that no one really hoped to find it. Thirdly, it was obvious that, nevertheless, these parallel people really wanted to find it, because the prospects were clear and ready, since the ordinary low-temperature superconductivity had been discovered long before and they were able to use it. The whole question was - attention! - in the price, in the money. Because cooling superconductors with liquid helium is a big, big problem, and there was no cheaper option at that time. And there was a phrase in the article like 'Oh, if only we could discover such superconductors that could be cooled with liquid nitrogen! It would make a real revolution in all human civilization!' So what do you think, it hadn't passed a year when - bam! - there was announced the discovery of exactly such superconductors. By a sheer luck, outside any existed theory of superconductivity. In that parallel world or maybe in ours too it was a global sensation, spoken and shown from every TV-set."