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<blockquote data-quote="W. Mark Hellinger" data-source="post: 32951" data-attributes="member: 692">Re: Snake problemsI believe you&#039;re correct; however, different things expand and contract somewhat differently when heated and cooled. Much like railroad rail, I&#039;d imagine copper wire expands fairly consistently (mass relative) in all 3 dimensions... and of-course it&#039;s &quot;long&quot; dimension is the most massive dimension, so I&#039;d imagine copper wire gets noticeably longer as it gets hotter. I suspect the outer casting on a snake also expands in all dimensions, and it&#039;s &quot;long&quot; dimension is also it&#039;s most massive, but: The outer casing is generally PVC, not metal (if you hit a nail with a hammer, even a copper nail, you can generally drive the nail into a piece of wood... not so likely attempting to drive a piece of PVC into a piece of wood with a hammer)... so if the snake has a bunch of kinks in it, my theory is that the outer casing can&#039;t lengthen out with the copper conductors when the whole mass heats and expands (because it&#039;s impeded by the irregularity of the twisted snake), so the outer casing just gets puffier and bunches up some. If the snake was not kinked and twisted, the casing probably wouldn&#039;t be inhibited in expanding length-wise when it heats... and would follow the expansion of the conductors. Then, when the whole mass of a kinked and twisted snake cools off, the slightly bunched up outer casing cools in-place, chokes up a bit... and thus becomes just a tad shorter relative to the conductors. Repeated many times, and the outer casing becomes noticeably shorter than the conductors.That&#039;s my theory anyway... I&#039;ve been pulling weeds and mowing most of the day and thinking about it some more.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="W. Mark Hellinger, post: 32951, member: 692"] Re: Snake problems [COLOR=#222222][FONT=Verdana]I believe you're correct; however, different things expand and contract somewhat differently when heated and cooled. Much like railroad rail, I'd imagine copper wire expands fairly consistently (mass relative) in all 3 dimensions... and of-course it's "long" dimension is the most massive dimension, so I'd imagine copper wire gets noticeably longer as it gets hotter. I suspect the outer casting on a snake also expands in all dimensions, and it's "long" dimension is also it's most massive, but: The outer casing is generally PVC, not metal (if you hit a nail with a hammer, even a copper nail, you can generally drive the nail into a piece of wood... not so likely attempting to drive a piece of PVC into a piece of wood with a hammer)... so if the snake has a bunch of kinks in it, my theory is that the outer casing can't lengthen out with the copper conductors when the whole mass heats and expands (because it's impeded by the irregularity of the twisted snake), so the outer casing just gets puffier and bunches up some. If the snake was not kinked and twisted, the casing probably wouldn't be inhibited in expanding length-wise when it heats... and would follow the expansion of the conductors. Then, when the whole mass of a kinked and twisted snake cools off, the slightly bunched up outer casing cools in-place, chokes up a bit... and thus becomes just a tad shorter relative to the conductors. Repeated many times, and the outer casing becomes noticeably shorter than the conductors. That's my theory anyway... I've been pulling weeds and mowing most of the day and thinking about it some more.[/FONT][/COLOR] [/QUOTE]

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