Author: mschmidt
Date: 2010-11-25 04:04
I'm sorry to be such a pain in the neck, but I have been trained to be skeptical--by both my research mentors and my experience as an experimental scientist. You say "If humidity had been the primary cause, it would have cracked while she was playing it - not after she stopped." Well, maybe. But the transport of moisture through the wood would likely be slow--the high-moisture front could be traveling outward through the wood even after she swabbed the oboe and left it out in the theater. The stress that could have caused the crack might have little to do with the ambient conditions in the theater--the wood may have dried from the outside in over the course of a few dry winter weeks, and the high-stress interface between wet and dry could be several mm in from the surface.
It seems your statement could just as well have been "If temperature had been the primary cause, it would have cracked while she was playing it--not after she stopped," because the temperature difference between her breath and the ambient air (90 ˚F and 65˚F, if it's an unheated theater, for a ∆T of 25˚F) while playing was probably as great as, or greater than, the difference between the ambient air (which quickly filled the oboe when it was no longer played) and the cold draft (65 ˚F vs. say, 45˚, for a ∆T of 20˚F) when the instrument was sitting out during the interval. Of course, all these temperature estimates are just guesses--which is why we should be reluctant to conclude anything from this anecdote.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
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