We have learned to add holes and drainage in tall buildings in order for them to work. The lesson learned in tall buildings is that we can’t keep the rain out so we drain it out after it has entered. We can reduce the amount that enters but we can never completely keep it all out. Drainage and holes are key. These are regularly installed in tall buildings but not in short buildings. Until we add holes and drainage to small buildings they will continue to leak. This is so counter-intuitive that it borders on magic.
This story all begins with a cup in the rain (Figure 1). It is a plain ordinary cup, nothing magical about it yet. It is oriented parallel to the ground. Rain falls out of the sky due to something called gravity. The raindrops have momentum (“kinetic energy”) associated with them. There is no wind in this simple story of a cup in the rain so far. Sometimes the raindrops don’t fall completely straight down* and so they will occasionally fall into the cup. But lo and behold, even though some raindrops enter the cup the rainwater can drain out of the cup due to the slope of the cup with a little help from gravity. Drainage at work.
Figure 1: Cup in the Rain—Occasionally raindrops enter cup due to momentum and drain back to exterior via gravity and slope of cup. Did I mention drainage?
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