Being the financially lacking student that I am, I live in cheap student accommodation. This means that I share a lavatory. There is someone else who seems to insist upon smoking in it regularly (twice already this morning, and it's even sunny outside - a 15m walk). I'm sure this is not the only lavatory in which this takes place.
I propose a device built into the ceiling of the room with an ordinary smoke detector modified to produce a loud bang rather than the usual siren. This bang will somewhat surprise the smoker, and is likely to prevent the problem re-occurring. The circuit is as follows: detector output wires --> solenoid to release safety catch and trigger of shotgun. The use of blank cartridges is not recommended.
If one does not wish to deal with the mess that this is likely to create, a gamma source may be turned on instead.-- TomP, Dec 04 2012 I like this premise for a science fiction story, in which the smoke-hater sets up devices to catch whoever is smoking, and winds up catching more than he expected.-- bungston, Dec 04 2012 On the one hand, I wish people would grow a thicker skin to the insults of daily life.
On the other hand, this is pretty original, especially the part with the gamma ray emitter, secretly killing them.
The question is this: If the door is closed, the gamma ray emmiter is on, and the inside of the room can not be observed from the outside, does the smoker have cancer or not, or is he living in a quantum state in which he both has and has not cancer?
[+] to you.
How much are gamma ray emitters anyway? Where can I get one?-- Kansan101, Dec 04 2012 If exposed to a gamma emitter, likely the gamma emitter.-- rcarty, Dec 04 2012 We could eliminate the problem of public restroom smoking entirely by marketing several new, hip brands of cigarrettes laced with Californium, giving any user's lungs a half-life of approx 15 hours.-- Alterother, Dec 04 2012 You could always, and by always I mean never ever, substitute the water in the tank and bowl for something clear, colourless and highly flammable such as kerosene, and when the smoker inevitably extinguishes his cigarette in the toilet he dies. Although now that I think about it it would have to be something like ethanol or turpentine.-- rcarty, Dec 04 2012 You've probably overestimated the ability of a cigarette ember to ignite those solvents, but you're in the right neighborhood.-- normzone, Dec 04 2012 Given long enough intervals between flushings, the _lighter_ could ignite the _fumes_ from a toilet bowl filled with white gas (which incidentally has a very tame odor).-- Alterother, Dec 04 2012 So, let me see if I have this straight. You have a small confined space in which people routinely defaecate, and you're worried about...nah, really?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 04 2012 Whichever half of you that currently claims to be American, m'lud, has apparently become spoiled by the European indifference to tobacco use. It's a big deal over here.-- Alterother, Dec 04 2012 //Floating microscopic shit particles aren't known to cause cancer//
That is without a doubt the crappiest thesis topic I have ever heard of.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 05 2012 //but you're in the right neighborhood//
the halfbakery?-- rcarty, Dec 05 2012 //It's a big deal over here.//
I would venture to say at this point that you're more likely to face social stigma for partaking in the non- wacky variety of tobacky. Well, maybe not /quite/ yet, but we're heading there, for better or for worse.
Or, as the joke goes, fifty years ago you'd walk into a convenience store and say “I'd like to buy a pack of cigarettes! (Psst… and a condom.)” Now, you'd say “I'd like to buy a condom! (Psst… and a pack of cigarettes.)”-- ytk, Dec 05 2012 random, halfbakery