Testing the Waters

Today I'll surprise my neighborhood pool lifeguards by getting totally suited up to swim a couple laps and test out the flippers and mask so generously lent to me by Maddy Hartley and family. I think their confused stares are preferable to the piranhas and fecal coliform in the Jordan River, or the currently frigid Great Salt Lake.

But, somehow, I'm not sure if the Sorensen center pool will really give me the ocean practice I'm looking for. Sure it's a pretty big pool with all sorts of bizarrely interesting and colorful life forms frolicking about, but from a water chemistry perspective I expect some significant differences. Which brings me to our first essential question: How is the Sorenson pool not like the ocean?

I'm not going to beleaguer this question, but for anyone out there who still questions the usefulness of their high school chemistry education, check out all the chemistry you need to know to manage a pool.

One difference that I have noticed between the Sorenson pool and the ocean is an apparent difference in size. Based on weeks of investigation I've come to the strong hypothesis that the ocean is indeed larger than the Sorenson pool, though I will have to wait until I land in the Bahamas on Saturday to verify this hypothesis. If the ocean is indeed as large as it looks on various globes (on which I can easily find the ocean but have difficulty locating the Sorenson pool) then I would imagine that you need an even greater understanding of chemistry to figure out what's going on there.