and galvanic or bimetallic corrosion. As one might expect, crevice corrosion is the degradation of a material that takes place in the cracks and irregularities in it. Material is generally lost at the very edge or mouth of the crevice and can either be deposited elsewhere on the material or dissolve into the surroundings. This form of corrosion is particularly damaging to steel components like the ones in the Hurricane Barrier's Cooling Water Canal. Galvanic corrosion looks a lot like a galvanic cell, which will be explained later. The metal suffers "anodic attack" and loses material to either another part of itself or its surroundings. Galvanic corrosion requires an electrolyte, a nonmetallic liquid that is endowed with conductivity by the charged particles dissolved within it.

A more scientific explanation of corrosion begins with a bored fourteen-year-old in 1805. Then, Michael Faraday spent his days apprenticing with a London bookbinder. Faraday often got in hot water with his superior because he preferred reading the books rather than making them. His insolence paid off though, and about a decade after he entered the bookbinding business he happily left it. He accepted a position at the Royal Institution where he began his illustrious career of performing chemistry experiments for a living. After a slow start, his contributions to science went from esoteric to groundbreaking. After discovering benzene (a six-member carbon ring that serves as the basis for most of the molecules in the human body), liquefied chlorine, and electromagnetism, Faraday laid the foundations for electrochemistry. His eponymous law, the fundamental principle of the field, states that the mass of an element discharged at an electrode is directly proportional to the amount of electrical charge passed through the electrode. For our purposes, one can say that the amount of material lost from a metal due to corrosion is proportional to the electrical charge through that metal. As the Hurricane Barrier sits in the murky depths of Providence's antiquated artery, its steel components tend to lose electrons, as all metals do. This tendency results in an electric potential and is the source of an electrical charge.

So, the metal is consumed by its surroundings as they steal electrons from it. The metal is said to be oxidized and its sooty surroundings are said to be reduced. This process is often divided up into two chemical equations, an anodic (oxidation) reaction and a cathodic (reduction) reaction. The anodic reaction is called the oxidation reaction because it loses electrons; it gains positive charge. The cathodic reaction is also called the reduction reaction because the element gains electrons; it gains negative charge. The anodic reaction is the one that takes place on the metal, (this is not necessarily true, but for this discussion it will suffice), while the cathodic reaction takes place in the water. For example, if we put iron in the