But I thought the fluorocarbons were heavier than oxygen and couldn't possibly rise above ground level???

 

In a controlled lab maybe (haven't a clue on the respective densities), but in the atmoshere there's a lot of mixing going on due to temp differentials, thermals, density variations, pressure differences, precipitation, wind (which is never constant, quoted windspeed is either the locally measured speed or the average downrange speed, such as used in ballistic calculations), the coriollis effect, etc, etc. And people driving cars through the air doesn't help All this turbulence and movement mixes the gasses in the atmosphere. Without it we'd theoretically have all the different gases forming layers & there'd be no sign at all of the lighter ones as they'd all float to the upper atmosphere, where they'd be lost to the vacuum of space. There's also different layers of atmosphere "capping" the layer below it (such as when polluted air is held at ground level by the layer above it, or radio waves get better "bounce" in certain atmospheric conditions), just like you see in layers of water that have different concentrations of salinity. A practical example of the different behaviour of the atmosphere is a small camp fire. On a nice day the smoke goes up. On a grotty, damp day the smoke can cling to the ground & spread outwards rather than up. Another example is a glider that flies into the base of a thunder head. Won't be very long before the glider reaches impressive heights. If the updraught lifts a glider & pilot that far then molecules of a gas slightly heavier than nitrogen/oxygen won't be a problem for it. Another example is getting smacked on the head by a large hailstone - that came from fairly high up & water is heavier than air! On a molecular level all the molecules of gasses bumping into each other also ensure mixing (Brownian motion is a visible manifestation of this). An example of gasses not immediately floating up/down is Ozone itself. As there's a high level layer of ozone it seems logical to assume that it's not denser than "normal" air? If that's the case then why is it that Ozone causes pollution problems at ground level & doesn't go immediately up to the ozone layer? If we fully understood the dynamics of the atmosphere & all the causes of them (which includes such things as the moon's gravity, a butterfly flapping its wing in Brazil, or a cow farting in Argentina) then the weather forecasters might even get their forecasts correct.

When I was in Australia last year I got a badly sunburnt head. Was it due to the hole in the ozone layer, or the hole in my hair that never used to be there?

And if I was in a computer room that was on fire I'd have no hesitation in opening the door to leave. Sacrifice my ear drums to protect a computer system? Stuff that, every day I'm sacrificing my mental health due to the cursed things. I'd get out of the room real quick & I'd watch the computers through the windows: "burn, you b'stards, burn".
But what's all this got to do with C3's?

 

I can always count on Paul for a good laugh
Eddie

 

I was the VP of a mainframe computer center. We had Halon extinguishers. I bought a small one & carried it in the Corvette for years.
Used it in a small room (no problems) & outside on someone else's car engine fire.
They work great.

 

how many times in your life would you be exposed to Halon?

Prolonged exposure might be a problem but that ain't gonna happen.

 

I wear a hat to cover the hole!

 

A little extra about the Halogen alarm system. The audible alarm that proceeded gassing the room was not intended to be an alarm to exit the room, since as I said you were not supposed to open the room doors and dilute the Halogen gas that was going to be dispensed. Instructions were to stay in the room. The purpose of the alarm was that you were supposed to move away from the Halogen blow-out ports and also you were supposed to open your mouth! You weren't supposed to be near the blow-out ports since the halogen gas being discharged had no oxygen and you would faint. Also you had to open you mouth because the explosive effect of the valves opening and also a temporary rapid rise in internal room pressure could blow out your ear drums.

Anyhow, I provided this training class at several places. Personally, I always thought that if I was in a computer room and there was a real fire and the Hologen audible alarm went off, I would run.