"Daddy is famous." declared my five-year old. "Famous" to Sabrina is an occupation and one far more understandable than that old one of "scientist". While she might have had some vague notion of what "saving electricity" was she now knows that Daddy’s job is to have his name in the paper and be heard on the radio.
I owe this job change to what appears to be one of the foundations of American society, Duct Tape. Yes, I am talking about that gray sticky roll of stuff you probably have in your house, car, boat, truck, or garage. Yes, I really am a scientist and, yes, I really am "doing science". You may have heard of me or at least a piece of my work on the radio or in the papers, because I am credited with finding out that duct tape is not really very good for use on ducts. As anyone who has played with old ducts in an attics knows, failing duct tape is not really a surprise. It is, as it turns out, an amusing surprise to almost everyone else.
Although I have always used duct tape, it was not part of boyhood ambition to make a career out of it. Like many of my nerdy peers, I once entertained notions of someday doing something noteworthy. While getting my Ph.D. in physics from Berkeley, however, such dreams involved things more like a Nobel prize or discovering a new element, a new planet, a new particle or new energy sources, rather than duct tape. I decided early in my career to work on the scientific aspects of energy and environmental issues.
My colleagues and I have been working on the important, but hardly Einsteinian, problem of why so much energy is wasted in the heating and cooling ducts of houses and how to save that 20-40% of energy that is wasted. Over the past two years we have used the intellectual resources of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to, among other things, build an apparatus capable of doing accelerated testing of different kinds of duct sealants. We developed a laboratory test apparatus that does accelerated testing of duct sealants using a standardized leak. We rapidly exposed the sealants to heat and cold and pressure in ranges typical of extremes found in houses. We tested how the seal held up and how long it took to fail.
While most of the sealants passed our test, duct tape failed, often as fast as a few days. The sound bite for this has become "it failed reliably and often catastrophically". I admit to selecting those words for their impact. "catastrophically" is technically quite accurate, but sounds like something juicier than tape falling off quickly.
The last few weeks have been a rush, but science does not in fact move at this kind of pace. This research task began about two years ago when we got funded to find out if some duct sealants were better than others in a way that regulators and/or utilities could use in their energy efficiency programs. We spent a year designing, building and testing the apparatus and finally began taking data in the fall of 1997. We stopped taking data in April 1998 and began analyzing and writing up our results. Because our findings were so clear cut, we wanted to publish them fast for the benefit of our sponsors, so we choose the journal Home Energy rather than the more hidebound journals we usually pick. (" Can Duct Tape Take the Heat"). By starting the review process before the final data was completely in, we managed to get it published in the July/August 1998 issue. This is warp speed for research publication.
Almost as soon our published results became available on the web in July, my life took on a very different character. It started with a call from Better Homes and Gardens who would eventually have a piece on duct tape in their September 1998 issue. The first place it appeared in mainstream press, however, was in the July 29 issue of USA Today. This USA Today article was indirectly the trigger for the real press feeding frenzy.
Our Lab has a process for doing press releases on things it deems would be of interest to the public. I had started this process as soon as I knew the report was approved for publication. Being a National Laboratory this process takes a while. Since the topic was duct tape rather than the discovery of a new element or an addition of another Nobel Laureate to our ranks, it was not a rush priority. The USA Today article changed all that because it gave the credit for this research to the Lawrence Livermore Lab rather than Lawrence Berkeley Lab. This may not seem like a big deal but to the Labs it is like confusing a Republican from North Carolina with a Democrat from Massachusetts. (The Berkeley Lab is the oldest and most diverse of the labs while Livermore Lab does the classified weapons work.)
Like a candidate to soft money, the Lab jumped and expedited the press release so that such a mistake would not happen again. In only another week, they got it out, and soon the calls started for real. It took me a bit aback when I got a call from a reporter "who covers duct tape for the Wall Street Journal". It occurred to me that this was a rather specialized position, until he informed me he did other things as well. Nevertheless, I had been contacted by the duct tape desk at the WSJ; this was obviously going to be a big deal.
The next press interaction was with the Berkeley campus paper. At the time I was too green myself to recognize that the reporter I was talking to had not yet fully mastered her craft. The article that came out was sufficiently skewed as to qualify as yellow journalism, which of course is a tradition here in the San Francisco area. Nevertheless I had said something noteworthy enough to misquote. The bastion of yellow journalism, the San Fransisco Examiner, did not cover the story until it was on the wire services.
The real reporting was done by the Sacramento Bee and San Jose Mercury News the following week. I got a better appreciation for what good science editors and writers do at metropolitan papers. It is from these two stories that most of other coverage derives, because their stories went to the wire services. Carrie Peyton of the Bee came to our Lab to interview us and see the apparatus and the results. Glennda Chui of the Mercury News came down to the conference where I was presenting these results to listen to the discussion and interview people. The peak of the frenzy came in the next few days. In a blur I would be interviewed (by phone) by MSNBC, National Public Radio, CBS, Associated Press, and several others that I did not keep track of.
The idea that duct tape is really not very good for ducts appears to be the perfect counter-point to "The Monica" and various debacles in Russia. (I was lucky that the story broke before any baseball records were being shattered.) It seems that a mention of "duct tape" induces a giggle and that the irony of the name is too much for the media to pass up. Very soon I was doing several interviews a day, answering questions like: "How did it get is name?" (I don’t know.) "What can you use it for?" (Anything but ducts.) "Do you use duct tape?" (All the time, just not on ducts.) "What is the most cost effective use of duct tape?." (Well, if Hillary had kept duct tape in the White House, the country would not be subject to history in the making.) etc.
Not being used to this sort of thing it was a heady time for me, made more so by the fact that the peak of it was occurring while I was at a conference discussing these results. It definitely gives one a bit of a swelled head to have two producers from National Public Radio fighting over which show you should be on or to put the Associated Press on hold while you talk to CBS .
This story has been on the front pages of newspapers all around the country. Although I knowingly told my friends its no big deal, because the story is below the fold, I was secretly wondering if there were duct-tape groupies in my future. Although the groupies have not materialized, there is a sort of duct tape cult, which I became aware of when we started this research. Web sites and books abound, glorifying the many uses of duct tape—very few of which even mention ducts at all.
The cults appear harmless, but my wife is concerned over the notoriety I have been forbidden opening any packages sealed with duct tape, meeting with duct tape manufacturers unchaperoned, or having anything to do with the state of Montana. The biggest manufacturer does not actually make "duct tape;" they make "Duck Tape" and it not recommended for use on ducts. Other manufacturers were surprised by our results and, along with Underwriters Laboratory which rates some duct tapes, they are withholding judgement.
My friends and relatives have called in from all over the country as they saw or heard my name. While most reports were positive there was a bit of "You got a Ph.D. in Physics so you could what? study Duct Tape?" or "Real scientists don’t do duct tape" or "You wasted your fifteen minutes of fame on duct tape?" Everyone’s a critic. Naturally, they take that opportunity to tell me the most recent duct tape joke they have heard.
There is, of course, a serious side to this story. Millions of homes have their duct systems sealed with duct tape. Our results would indicate that there would be a large number of premature failures, especially in the sunbelt. Such failures would not usually be obvious but would look like the air conditioning (or heating) was simply not doing the job as well as it used to. The homeowner would call the repair guy, who would sell them a larger unit and all would be fine again. Fine, except for the fact that the homeowner was paying far too much money for energy and equipment, and that a bit chunk of carbon was being added to our atmosphere needlessly. This enormous potential savings is why the utility ratepayer (through the California Institute for Energy Efficiency) and the American taxpayer (through the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency) are paying us to do duct research. The future of this productive research, as least for Californians, is in the hands of the California Energy Commission which, through the miracle of utility deregulation, is responsible for Public Interest Energy Research in the state.
It does not take a rocket scientist to explain this stuff. For example, early one morning while I was at the conference, my wife got a phone call asking for me. When the caller then asked for Iain Walker (the co-author of the study) who should not normally be at my home at that hour, Jan was a bit concerned, but realized what was going on when they asked if she knew anything about duct tape. What Jan did not realize was that as soon as she said she knew a little of the results, she was put live on Alaskan radio. The Anchorage paper reported that one of the three pillars of Alaskan culture was under attack; it appears that Alaskans take their duct tape quite seriously.
As a professional, the one line I should probably be the most proud of is the one in the energy regulations in California that restricts the use of duct tape. Using other sealants (of which there are plenty) is a win-win situation saving the homeowner money and helping the environment. As one liners go, however, seeing yourself quoted in Time Magazine is hard to beat.
Although my mother disagrees, I am pretty sure this stuff does not qualify for a Nobel Prize. Fittingly though, duct tape is the theme of this years Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. (The Ig Nobels are given to research that cannot or should not ever be repeated.) The choice of theme has nothing to do with our research. But when they saw the press coverage, they asked me to make a 60 second tribute to duct tape during the ceremonies at Harvard next month. My exhortations on where not to use duct tape may be sandwiched between the duct tape fashion show and the duct tape opera sung by real Nobel Laureates.
My fifteen minutes of fame drew to a close. All of this duct tapery is being forgotten by the press. NPR is covering the gyrations of the markets caused by Alan Greenspan returning a bowl of borscht. George Will may be describing how breaking Rodger Maris’ record ushers in a new wave of conservatism. The front pages (above the fold) will cover the Kennedy-Packwood denouncement of improper behavior in high office. I will get back to my less exciting, but important research of trying to improve energy efficiency in houses.
Sabrina has already grown tired of hearing about "Duct Tape" and has ordered us to stop talking about it at dinner. She has declared, and rightly so, that her first week in Kindergarten ought to be the subject of conversation. I am, however, still a "Duct Tape Hero" in the eyes of my eight-year old, Alex. He read that duct tape is like the Force because it binds us and holds us together. Naturally then, Daddy must be a Jedi. Thank you, duct tape.
Max Sherman; September 1998
Max Sherman is a staff senior scientist at the Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the group leader of the Energy Performance of Buildings group of the Indoor Environment Department.