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From: phillips@cisden.UUCP (Tom Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: Real-life rice puzzler
Message-ID: <516@cisden.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 11:57:01 EST
Article-I.D.: cisden.516
Posted: Thu Feb 20 11:57:01 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 05:42:56 EST
References: <1206@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: phillips@cisden.UUCP (Tom Phillips)
Followup-To: net.puzzle
Organization: ConTel Information Systems, Denver
Lines: 24

In article <1206@decwrl.DEC.COM> shuster@oblio.DEC (RoB ShUsTeR 226-6807) writes:
>Ok, here's a puzzle from real-life.  I don't know the answer.  
>If you like to stir your rice before it's done, this is not for you:
>1) Boil water in a regular sauce pan.
>2) Throw in a cup of rice, any brand, and cover pan.
>3) DO NOT stir rice before all water is absorbed! (Don't worry, only a 
>few grains burn.)
>When all the water has been absorbed, and you remove the cover, you 
>should see holes in the rice created by steam coming up from the 
>bottom of the pan.  The holes are arranged in a curious pattern: a set 
>of concentric circles, perhaps 3 or 4, centered around the center of 
>pan.  Why does this happen?
>-Rob Shuster

You have an electric range, don't you?
The heating element is a spiral, and where it touches the pan is where the
highest heat is, thus where the bubbles form.  QED.
If I'm being naive, I'm sure someone will correct me...
-- 
						Tommy Phillips
From the banks of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River,
all set about with fever-trees.

				cisden!phillips