• Nougat@fedia.io
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    13 days ago

    The glassy surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats has attracted drivers from all over the world, …

    Tell me you’ve never been on the salt flats without saying you’ve never been on the salt flats.

    • 0li0li@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Can you explain what you mean here to someone who had never heard of salt flats before?

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        12 days ago

        When a lightly salty body of water evaporates over time in the right way and on the right terrain, the result is a very flat layer of salt. But the surface isn’t anything like glass. It does occasionally rain there. It’s a kind of sticky slush of tiny moist rocks.

        Bonneville is large enough, thick enough, and flat enough to run extremely fast straight line machines on. Flat, like a geometric plane. There’s lots of things made of glass that are curved; glass is known for its smoothness.

        Salt flats are flat, and not necessarily smooth. Glass is smooth, and not necessarily flat.