But late Wednesday, University of Utah fluid mechanics professor Patrick McMurtry corked the science to instead appreciate the artistic beauty created by blasts of golden-blue flames swirling 60 feet into the blackened sky, brilliantly illuminating the glass face of the Salt Lake City Library.
McMurtry and about 500 others stood in the library to watch a 20-minute show of flames presented by fire artist Nate Smith. The demonstration followed an hourlong documentary by filmmaker Mel Halbach on Smith's fire art.
"Sometimes the best thing you can do as a scientist is throw away the computers, pens and pencils and sit back and enjoy it," McMurtry said.
McMurtry is passionate about fires and explosions. He is a member of the University of Utah's Center for the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions, C-SAFE. He stresses that this work is an interdisciplinary effort from scientists in many fields. McMurtry is analyzing the explosion of the truck that overturned in Spanish Fork Canyon in August, blowing a 70-foot crater in the highway.
McMurtry said properties of fires and explosions certainly have military applications, but "I'm a peaceful guy and I don't want to go there."
McMurtry, who wore beads and a headband, said Smith and Halbach accompanied him to the 2004 Burning Man festival, a weeklong celebration of self-expression held in the Nevada desert each September. Halbach wore his Burning Man outfit on stage Wednesday, including lighted horns. Much of Halbach's high-definition documentary was filmed at the festival.
Smith, who originally was a photographer, became interested in creating a vortex of fire when he saw a 300-foot dust devil in a burning field. He also refined his ideas when he proposed a new Olympic torch cauldron.
Smith wore a silver fire suit. He shot flame out of a propane wand, and wind from 12 giant fans, slightly turned in the same direction, created a vortex in the rising burst of flame.
Susan Thomas, a graduate student studying turbulence, aerodynamics and advanced fluid-mechanics under McMurtry, observed the fire art with several engineering graduate student friends.
"We're such nerds," she said. "This demonstration was fantastic. It reminds us why we are engineers."
For the love of fire that McMurtry has, he seems not to love building fires. "When I build a campfire, I don't stack sticks. I use gasoline.
Although McMurtry simulates fire and explosions with physics-based equations, he sees the physics only as the basis of his work. "You can learn the physics without solving every equation. You also have to be able to describe qualitatively what's going on."
Appreciating the qualitative Wednesday night, McMurtry made no predictions on what would happen with the moderate wind gusts. McMurtry reflected on predictability: "If everything in life were completely predictable, nothing would be fun."
