After the space shuttle Challenger exploded, a distinguished panel of scientists, government officials, and aerospace executives was asked to determine the cause of the accident. Although mounting evidence indicated a problem with the shuttle's O-rings, numerous hearings proved inconclusive. The inquiry was changed forever after physicist Richard Feynman performed a little experiment while the panel was in session. He dropped a piece of rubber from an O-ring into a glass of ice water, simulating the conditions during the shuttle launch. (Feynman suspected that the freezing temperature at the time of the launch had prevented the rubber on the O-ring from functioning properly.) As Feynman expected, the rubber failed to perform properly in the glass of ice water. His simple demonstration was broadcast on television news programs throughout America, and it ended the debate about what caused the disaster.
Sources
Malcolm Kushner, Public Speaking For Dummies, p. 15
