Advertisements in the past were far more dishonest than the ones we come across these days. By promoting quack applications and building a multi-million dollar empire in those days, businesses were far ahead of today’s corporations in terms of dishonesty.
One such advertisement by a German company under the brand name of Doramad, till the year 1945, was able to convince thousands of people to shell their money on a specially formulated toothpaste that contained a little amount of Thorium – a naturally occurring radioactive element. The toothpaste sold for astronomical prices and brought in big money to businesses and individuals. It claimed that the radioactive element present in the toothpaste would bring the users great health benefits and would make their teeth shine brighter.
After it was certain that Germany would lose the war, a German company the Auer Company rerouted thorium from the Nazi atomic program in the year 1944. Thus, the company saw a future for nuclear materials in cosmetics and created Doramad toothpaste.
The Doramud brochure came with information like this:
Its radioactivity increases the defenses of teeth and gums. The cells are loaded with new life energy, the bacteria are hindered in their destroying effect. This explains the excellent prophylaxis and healing process with gingival diseases. It gently polishes the dental enamel so it turns white and shiny. Prevents dental calculus. Wonderful lather and a new, pleasant, mild and refreshing taste. Can be applied sparingly. – [SadAndUseless]
Another man by the name of Alfred Curie sold a similar toothpaste that contained both Thorium and Radium. This person was in no way related to Marie Curie, yet he did not leave the chance of making a big buck using that name.
More than just Radioactive Toothpaste
It did not stop there. Alfred also managed to make his other radioactive cosmetic products extremely popular among the common people. He sold cremes, powders and lip-sticks under the brand name of Tho-Radia. These cosmetics claimed that they would transform your dull skin into an extremely healthy rejuvenated skin.
During those times when the science behind radioactivity was still being studied by the famous scientists like Rutherford and Marie Curie, radioactivity was not well understood by the common people. Random people claimed that Radium was the cure for everything and made a lot of money out of this propaganda. In fact, even in newspapers one could find seriously mis-informed headlines like –
Radium Makes Blind Girl See
Who knows, people in the future might find the ads we see today, as shocking…
Today we have something which civil engineers would be extremely proud of – A recent innovation in concrete technology that has an immense life-changing potential – The concrete cloth; certainly a splendid engineering marvel.
What is it?
It is material which feels like a very thick canvas and has a three-dimensional fiber matrix. This piece of thick cloth is impregnated with a specially formulated concrete mixture. Once it is completely wet with water, it hardens into a thin, strong, fire-resistant and water-proof material, within a few hours. Commercial variants either have a hydrophobic coating on the outer surface or a PVC lining from the inside to make it completely impermeable to water.
Since it just a thick piece of canvas impregnated with concrete, it can be transported fairly easily and can be made into various shapes to be used for different applications. For instance, it can be used for rapidly deploying hardened concrete shelters for people in need. It works like this:
You carry a huge concrete canvas balloon with you in a truck.
Place it wherever you need the shelter to be deployed.
Pump water into it.
Quickly start inflating it using a pump.
Pull it around using, say a truck.
Wait for it to harden.
Advantages:
To erect a shelter with concrete canvas, it only takes a fraction of the time taken to construct a shelter using tradition building techniques.
Unlike cloth tents, this one is extremely durable and can last for about 10 years. Moreover, it protects the residents from any form of extreme weather outside (Thermally insulated).
Construction material is light enough to be transported by a small pickup truck.
Requires just 2 people and can be deployed to a ready state within 24 hours – Within these 24 hours it gains about 80% of its full strength.
Can be tailored as required with the help of staples, cuts and nails / screws. In fact cutting it before hardening is not much different from cutting a thick piece of cloth.
While it may sound like switching plates won’t help your diet, it actually greatly affects the way you see, and consume food. In the long run it helps you lose weight effortlessly.
If you don’t believe me, I suggest you look at the following common optical illusion – Tell me which one of the circle that is filled with black color, is larger?
You know the answer. Although they don’t look equal to our not-so-smart brain, both of the circles are really equal in size. But what does that tell you?
Moral: Think of the black circle as food. Put it in a larger plate and you think it is less food, and you don’t mind adding little more food to it. Whereas, if you use smaller plates, the amount food looks like it is a lot already. As a result, if you own only small plates, you won’t add more food. Who am I to tell you that little changes give big results.
It has been proven by scientists that using smaller standard plates will reduce your consumption by around 20% every time. 20% is not less!
Note: Similarly, if you want to drink less, you could try replacing your short and stout glasses with taller glasses. This technique is based on another optical illusion known as the T-Illusion – which says that we tend to over-estimate the length of objects placed vertically. See it for yourself. [link]
Other Good Ways: In fact, before moving on to the bad ways, you must know that there are several good ways to lose weight without even trying hard. For instance:
Wait! Before you try this, let me tell you, this is one of those impractical / bizarre ways to experience severe weight loss I was talking about in the first line of this post. Since excess of anything isn’t good – backed by the fact that in ancient China people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt – chewing excess gum probably isn’t a good way to lose weight. I mention it just for the sake of information.
Sugar-free chewing gums contain Sorbitol – a laxative. Chewing these in excessive amounts – about 15+ a day – can cause serious weight loss and chronic diarrhea.
Although deciding to remain single all your life is not so impractical for everybody, you could consider it socially impractical (at least in orthodox Indian societies).
Yes, studies prove that Married men were 25% more likely to be overweight or obese than single men or men in committed relationship (i.e. dating or engaged). – Thanks to UsefulScience.org
Tahir Shah in his book, House of the Tiger King wrote:
“As the head of an expedition, you can’t pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.”
It turns out, a little growling can indeed go a long way – Sometimes it can even save your lives. Let’s see how…
Two Stories
Let us consider the two widely studied ship tragedies – Titanic and Lusitania. Here is a brief copied background of both the ship stories (to make it easier for you):
Titanic’s story: Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of more than 1,500 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history. – Wikipedia
Lusitania’s Story: Lusitania was a British ocean liner, holder of the Blue Riband and briefly the world’s biggest ship. She was launched by the Cunard Line in 1907, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. In 1915 she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, causing the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew. – Wikipedia
Differences and Similarities
Similarities: Both of them were British ships and capsized almost during the same time (a three years difference). Both the ships carried a similar distribution of passengers in terms of their age, gender and economic status. Chance of survival for voyagers in both the ships was around 30%.
Differences: One important thing to note about the sinking of Titanic was that after it hit the iceberg, it took about 160 minutes to sink. Whereas Lusitania was hit by a torpedo and it collapsed in 18 minutes. Isn’t that a big difference in time?
Since time taken to sink is the only big difference in both the stories, scientists think that this explains the changed behavior of people aboard, during the last minutes. As a result, it explains the big difference in the kind of people who died in Titanic-tragedy vs. Lusitania-tragedy.
Who died?
In Lusitania, which sank in 18 minutes, many youngsters who ages ranged from 16-35 years, survived. Since, people had no time to think and assemble into social groups, the fittest people were able to push their way out and survive – youngsters who were physically competent, survived.
Whereas Titanic sank in about 160 minutes, it gave people enough time to take into consideration, the social protocols. As a result several men queued up and politely let the women and children go first.
This is the reason, scientists think, more men survived when Lusitania sank. Whereas more women and children survived when Titanic sank.
British boys
on the Titanic, it is calculated that Americans were 8.5 per cent more likely to survive. On the other hand, British passengers were 7 per cent less likely to survive. A big difference! Why?
Australian researchers believe that since British passengers on the Titanic queued up politely to get into the lifeboats, a significantly high number of them died. Also, they think that Americans elbowed their way out, but there is no direct evidence that supports Americans were rude on the ship. If they were, we’ll never know.
In the past we’ve seen sound systems that used plasma instead of magnetsto produce sound. Well, those plasma sound systems were pretty well equipped to kill you, but they would do it in a different manner – by electrocuting you. This one we are talking about today, literally kills you with sound.
LEAF
European Space Agency uses an extra-large speaker that throws extra-big sound at test objects. It is known to recreate the sound that a launcher produces while taking off and travelling through atmosphere. This speaker, known as, the Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) in Netherlands, is used by the European Space Agency to test satellite parts.
The Glory: They say that if any person listens to sound playing on this speaker, he/she won’t survive. This is the reason, the most powerful sound system in Europe, is enclosed in a facility that has walls that 17 meters in height, are half a meter thick and are overlaid with a resin on the inner walls that reflects sound & does not let it escape. Also, it has a safety mechanism that doesn’t allow anyone to power it on, if the doors are not shut properly.
Nitrogen is pumped in great amounts through the huge ear-canal-like thing which enables it to produce sounds up to 154 decibel! If you are wondering how loud 154 decibel is, you should check this out – How Loud Can it Get. In short, it is loud enough to rupture your eardrums and probably kill you too.
I came across this equipment first at [PopSci]
More information at [ESA]
So I wondered, if this is the most powerful sound system in Europe, are there more powerful ones elsewhere in the world?
Duh! Yeah. And as expected, it is in USA.
Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility (RATF)
The Orion Integrated Environmental Testing at the NASA Space Power Facility (SPF), a huge facility which looks pretty much like a nuclear power plant from afar, houses several other testing facilities, and the world’s largest space environment simulation chamber, also has the worlds most powerful sound system – The Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility. [Image]
The horns that produce sound here, are also powered by Nitrogen and there are 36 of them. It is able to produce a total sound pressure of 163 dB, which is a lot more than what LEAF can produce (because dB scale is not linear) – About seven times more powerful than standing next to a jet engine or a Formula 1 race car. In here, it is far too easy to kill a full grown man.
I know I wrote about how smart crows can be a few days back, but even when I wasn’t particularly searching for amazing crow videos, I happened to stumble upon an astounding video of a crow solving some puzzle. I was so blown away by this, that I couldn’t resist sharing another crow post in under two weeks. Hold your hats because this crow, nicknamed 007 will blow them off your heads.
Side note: Want to see a chimpanzee blow your mind? Watch him do a task that more than 95% of the humans wouldn’t be able to do as well as he can do it. – [Working Memory – Chimpanzees vs. Humans]
Alex studies wild birds which he releases after 3 months of research. This one is nicknamed 007 and it is about to attempt what Alex believes is one of the most complex tests for the animal mind ever constructed. The bird is familiar with the individual objects, but this is the first time he is seeing them arranged like this.
In the video, a wild crow, previously not having learnt anything about the 8-part arrangement of the puzzle, manages to solve it with ease. I would have taken some time to figure out the solution.
8-Part sequence
The crow pulls out a small piece of stick from a thread.
It then approaches a box containing a piece of food and figures that it would need a longer stick to get it. It moves on with the smaller stick to take a stone out of another box.
Takes out another stone
And one more
Drops one of the three stones in a box which needs the weight of all three to release a longer stick.
Drops the second.
And the third. The longer stick is released. It takes the long stick.
Finally, the crow uses the longer stick to pull out food from the box mentioned in second point.
How I try to believe it
Although when I say that the crow wasn’t aware of the arrangement, I mean to say that it wasn’t aware of the sequence in which the puzzle was meant to be solved. It seems as if it was trained with the individual tasks.
I’m guessing that the crow was trained for some time to complete the individual tasks separately and not in a particular sequence. The 8-part sequence was probably shown to it for the first time. I may be wrong. But, I think when the speaker says, “The bird is familiar with the individual objects“, my interpretation makes sense.
If I’m wrong, I yield and state that crows are just too intelligent and are going to take over the world in a few hundred years.
Glow sticks or Light Sticks are so much fun and assuming you are able to get the required chemicals from a lab supply shop (online or offline), making them at home is as simple as mixing tang.
I came across this interesting video which teaches you how to make glow sticks at home. The best thing: You don’t have to worry about mixing exact measurements. An experiment definitely worth a try!
As the video tells you in the beginning, making these at home will cost you more than a ready-made glow stick. That is because the chemicals required to make it cost much lesser when bought in bulk. Nevertheless, it should be fun to try at home. If you can’t watch it, I’ve mentioned everything in detail below. [video]
1. SOLVENT: The first thing you need is Diethyl Phthalate (DEP). It is a fairly common substance because it is used a lot in detergent, sprays, cosmetics industries. Although it is clear and looks almost like water, you should avoid touching it with bare skin. In fact, none of these chemicals should be touched. Gloves are extremely important here. DEP will be your main solvent. All the magic will happen in it.
2. COLORS: The second part of making glow sticks involves the color. For this, you’ll need something called the fluorescent dyes. The ones used in the video are:
9,10-diphenylanthracene for Blue – White in solid state.
and Rhodamine B for Red – Green in solid state.
Mix the blue and Yellow solutions for the white glow stick.
3. ENERGY: To make enough energy to light it up you’ll need a mixture of three chemicals. The first one is TCPO(DNPO or CPPO can also be used). It is an expensive chemical. It can be made for much cheaper [video]
The second chemical is added to keep the liquid in alkaline state. Sodium Acetate (Remember Hot Ice).
In the end, you add, Hydrogen peroxide and shake to give the final glow. It acts as an oxidizing agent, reacts to form an unstable compound, which excites the dye to an excited state. The dye emits light when it comes back to the ground state. This is the reason you need Fluorescent dyes – normal dyes won’t work.
For more of such interesting chemistry tricks do subscribe to NurdRage on Youtube.
Till the year 2003, there were seven mathematical problems that had not been solved. Then came in Grigori Perelman, a Russian mathematician, who solved The Poincare Conjecture, a problem which was the first one of those seven unsolved problems.
To Grigori Perelman the prize was completely irrelevant. Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union tried persuading him for 10 long hours to accept the prize. But, he did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first and only person to decline this prestigious prize.
6 problems yet to be solved
One down. Today, six of them still remain unsolved. Each one of those six problems carries a $ 1 Million for whoever solves it. A total of $ 6 Million to be won! For more than a century the solutions to these six problems have eluded mathematicians.
P versus NP
The Hodge conjecture
The Riemann hypothesis
Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
Today, I’m going to talk about the first and probably the most popular problem among the six millennium prize problems.
P versus NP
The first one and one of the most vexing questions in computer science and mathematics is the P versus NP problem – polynomial versus non-deterministic polynomial. It is quite a popular one and has made appearances in TV shows like The Simpsons and Numbers and in a video game, SIMS 3.
The reason this one interests me more than the other 5 problems is because P versus NP is a problem which is the most likely, among all of them, to be solved by an amateur.
Presently it is not known if P equals NP. The problem if solved could figure which problems can or cannot be solved by a computer. Seems abstract, but if solved it could have great implications. It could dramatically affect our everyday lives.
Although mathematicians expect it to go the other way, but if it is proved that P = NP, it would make our current definitions of security obsolete. Public-key cryptography could become impossible. We could face problems with online security if wrong people get proper resources to break public key – That means it would become possible for people to break into your bank accounts, communications, emails, encrypted data etc…
Dealing with optimization problems would become easier. That means everything will be much more efficient. Transportation of will be scheduled optimally. Moving people and goods would become quicker and cheaper. Manufacturing units would be able to improve their production speed and make less waste etc…
Weather, earthquakes and other natural phenomenon would get easier to predict. We might even find the perfect cancer cure.
Do you like to keep a picture of someone you love in your wallet? If the answer is no, you should probably start doing it. But, suppose you have a loved baby, adorable parents, cute puppy and grandparents at home, all of whom you love equally, whose picture do you think would be the best one to keep in your wallet?
Professor Richard Wiseman from University of Hertfordshire, a psychologist, decided to find out. He designed an experiment that would be conducted on the street and would help him figure out the answer to this tough choice.
An experiment on the street
He and his team dropped 240 wallets around the city of Edinburgh. Just to find out, how many of the wallets would be returned by the finders to their respective owners.
Not all the wallets were same. A few displayed picture of a cute baby, others had a picture of a puppy, some had a family picture and others contained an elderly couple’s portrait.
There were some other wallets dropped which contained a receipt suggesting how charitable the owner of that wallet was. These had no pictures in them.
Which one do you think won? Guess and read on…
Results!
Following were the return percentages of wallets:
I hope babies don’t get too much cute-aggression out of you because the ones with baby pictures – An incredible 88% of these wallets got returned!
Ones with the puppy pictures – 53% were returned.
Family portrait wallets – 48% came back.
With just 28% return percentage, the ones with the picture of an elderly couple fared the worst among all wallets that had pictures.
And only 15% of the wallets that enclosed a receipt and had no pictures were returned to their owners.
Moral (take it with a grain of salt)
If it doesn’t hurt, you could experiment with a cute baby’s picture in your wallet. Since it was tested in just one city, there is a great chance that you could get a different result in your area. If you don’t have one yet, find one on the WWW. The internet is full of them!
Getting back a lost wallet 88 times out of 100 times is big probability. What do you have to lose? A simple picture of a baby will pump up your chances of getting back the wallet by so many percentage points. Go, get one printed right now!
For the last several days, the national average temperature in the US plunged by a several notches when the country was invaded by the bitingly cold polar vortex winds from the arctic, not once, twice. For the second time, the eastern sea board experienced a lot of trouble. So much that the state of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina declared a state of emergency. People got trapped for hours, hundreds of accidents were reported and schools had to shut down.
Conspiracy theories
Of course with the extremely cold winds came an abnormal amount of snow. And like always, even the seemingly harmless snow spurred a few theorists to spin out conspiracy theories. There were stories going viral that suggested that the crazy amounts of snow was actually “geo-engineered” and was being sent down by the government, stuffed with nano-bots to control the minds of people.
What backed them? The theories were backed with a claim that the material falling down from the sky was not actually snow and something else which did not melt when held against a flame. Videos showing people trying to melt the snowballs using a cigarette lighter went viral. In fact, the snow as it’d be expected to, wasn’t melting, it was collapsing. Like a Styrofoam dipped in acetone, or Styrofoam held against a flame would do, snow was mysteriously disappearing from around the flame. There was no dripping water. Moreover, the concave part of the snow was left with a black charred mark like plastic would!
Busted!
Turns out the “mysterious material” was nothing more than normal snow. The lesser known fact that snow does not melt like we’d expect it to, made people believe in the weird theories.
Yes, snow does not melt like normal ice. I mean it does melt, but it leaves almost no dripping water when the rate of melting is slow. Now, why is that?
Since, snow is porous, it contains several little holes that can suck in the water just like a tissue paper with tiny holes is able to soak in water. This particular process soaking, where tiny solid holes suck liquid, is termed as capillary action and is the same action which enables plants to suck in water from the ground and send it to the higher parts without any motor attached.
The soaking in a snowball happens in real-time. As the water gets melted, it gets soaked instantly, there is no time for the water to drip. This explains the collapsing snow.
The “charred snow” is due to the unburnt carbon left from the fuel of the lighter, not because it is made of plastic. Astronomer and science writer Phil Plait explains it in the video below. [Video]
So, despite being aware of its intimidating 3-hour length, with an open mind, I decided to watch the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate last night. For a better focus I chose a time when everything around was super quite (0000 hrs to 0300 hrs) and hence, I was able to attentively watch it right from the first second to the very last second. Before starting, I had my mind cleared of all the prejudices and was ready to embrace the most logical points coming from any one of them. Yes, I was even willing to accept that the earth is six thousand years old, if Ken Ham would have produced sound arguments.
Bill talking about a tree in Sweden, Old Tjikko, that’s over 9,000 years old
Although there were no winners or losers in that debate, for me, Bill Nye’s arguments were clearly moving – in the sense that he was able to take me on his side with sound arguments and very specific data points. Specifically, both of their answers, for one question asked from the audience was probably a turning point in the debate. When some one asked – What would make you change your mind? Bill told the audience to bring in sound evidences and they would change his mind. Ken Ham disappointingly suggested that nothing could change his mind. Clearly, a person who was willing to accept good evidences to change his beliefs was the winner for me; not a stiff/adamant person.
All said, Ken ham was not able to persuade me to accept his argument that the world was around six thousand years old.
In fact, at the end of the debate when both of the speakers were done, I observed that Ken Ham silently moved into the darker background and surprisingly (surprising because it was Kentucky), several people from the audience started approaching Bill Nye for a handshake or an autograph. Although, it wasn’t clear why they had approached him, whatever it was, it was definitely some kind of an appreciation for Bill. Evidently, people were impressed with his arguments.
Also, not being well aware of the Christian belief, during an online discussion after the debate, I was surprised to find that despite having embraced Christianity, there is a chunk of Christian population that believes the world is indeed several billions of years old (It is the Creationists who believe in six-thousand-year-old-earth theory). This chunk of Christian population was on the side of Bill Nye. So, this was not a God vs. Science debate. It was exactly like it was advertised – Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham.
Now, that things were starting to get a bit clearer, I decided to explore what sort of beliefs, the three most followed religions held on this topic. This is what I found:
Christians (31.59% of the world population): The ones who interpret the biblical writing in a literal manner believe that the Earth is six thousand years old and discard the theory of evolution (molecule to man). However, there is a huge chunk of Christians, with a background in science, who firmly believe that the earth is indeed several Billions of years old and also to an extent, believe in evolution.
Muslims (23.2% of the world population): According to this about page, Islam does not take a fixed stance on the age of the Earth. They prefer to leave the knowledge to their deity. Their holy book, Quran describes that the creation of Universe took “six days”. Again, according to them, at that time, as the definition of day could have been different than what it is now, especially when the Sun did not exist then, they do not like to say that the universe got created in 6 x 24 hours. In other words, they have a view very similar to the Biblical writings, yet are pretty flexible about accepting new theories on the age of our universe.
In the 19th century the prominent scholar of Islamic revival, Jamal-al-Din al-Afghānī agreed with Darwin that life will compete with other life in order to succeed. He also believed that there was competition in the realm of ideas similar to that of nature. – Wikipedia
Hindus (15% of the world population): Among all the three, Hinduism, the third most followed religion, has a lot of new things to say about the age of the universe. Since 95% of followers of this religion live in a single country, and the religion itself isn’t missionary in nature, its views are not popularly known all over the world. Personally, the Hindu religion and the vast amount of documented science it has in its ancient holy books fascinates me more than any other extant religion (not more than science, if you consider it a religion).
The religion believes in a circular time rather than a simple linear time-line of the universe and suggests the universe is several trillions of years old. In fact the “kalp-chakra” – the life span of the universe – it mentions is the largest measure of time known to man. And the end, it states that the universe collapses and gets created again.
The fundamental books of Hinduism, the Vedas, are huge, believed to be around 3,800 years old and comprehensively document numerous mathematical and scientific calculations. These books contain writings that cover topics from almost every science or maths subject known to man. In fact, they depend so much on mathematics that the holiest Hindu number is believed to be 108 which is probably the most beautiful number in mathematics.
According to a Wikipedia page on views of Hinduism on evolution:
Most God-believing Hindus accept the theory of biological evolution. They either regard the scriptural creation theories as allegories and metaphors, or reconcile these legends with the modern theory of evolution.
My opinion?
If you ask me, Bill Nye was a winner in the debate because of the all embracing state of mind he held all along – as long as you can bring in logical evidences to prove your ideas.
Although Hinduism fascinates me to a great extent, I’m not a religious person. My views about things are in line with Bill Nye’s views – I’d believe in anything as long as you can show me a valid and logical proof (arbitrary or literary interpretation of written verses from a book aren’t valid proofs). Moreover, I’d be ready to even modify my views over and over again as long as you keep bringing me evidences that disprove the older views. That is how science works, that is how logic works and that is what Bill Nye believes in.
Until today, I had no idea that non-spherical objects could have the same diameter at every point! Don’t believe me? Have a look at these wonderful little metal objects that aren’t anything even close to a sphere and are still able to roll a flat surface on them, as spheres would. [Video]
Like Gombocs, these shapes are a Mathematician’s fantasy. They have a generic name – constant width objects. In fact, these carefully machined metal objects could be perfect gifts for your mathematician friend. I know, I would some day, if you think you need these too, you can buy them here. (I’m in no way related to Grad-Illusions, nor am I an affiliate marketer)
Note: Though in some manner they look like Gombocs, they are not Gombocs. To know more about what Gombocs are, read this – [Gomboc – An Object That Never Falls]
How are they made?
Theoretically, to understand how they are made, you need to understand that the 3D objects of constant width are usually* spun out of a 2D object – Just like a sphere can be made by spinning a circle. Though there is a kind of constant width 3D object that is not a spun version of any 2D curve.
The 2D form is called the Reuleaux triangle and it looks like this [image]. The one shown in the link is a constant width curve based on an equilateral triangle (triangle with equal sides). It turns out, you can construct a constant width curve out of any triangle, and a polygon too (like the 50 pence coin shown above made out of a regular heptagon). To make a constant width curve using an equilateral triangle, all you need is a compass, a paper and a pencil:
Draw an equilateral triangle.
Put the point of your compass on one vertex.
Trace out an arc that starts from one of the other vertex and ends at the third one.
Repeat the same for rest of the two vertices. There! You have your constant width curve. Cut it out of paper.
Now around an axis dividing the shape into half, spin it. You have a theoretical 3D shape that resembles the one shown in the video above.
Vehicle tyres and square hole drills
So, since these shapes can roll things around like circles can, wheels could be made of these shapes too! Then, why aren’t wheels made that way? That is because when these shapes roll, they don’t have their centers at one place. If vehicles had tyres like these, engineers would have had a hard time designing axle systems.
They are in fact used in a Wankel engine. And since the center traces a square when Reuleaux triangle rolls, they have been used in drills that can drill out square holes.
Random constant width facts:
There are a few pencils which are manufactured in an extruded-reuleaux triangle shape. These pencils can roll around smoothly like circular pencils.
For some reason, even guitar picks are often manufactured in these shapes.
Instead of spinning around a constant width 2D object, a 3D constant width object can be made by modifying flat tetrahedron faces using intersections of sphere faces. As it can’t be done on a lathe, these are particularly hard to machine. It is called the Meissner’s tetrahedron or the Reuleaux Tetrahedron.
Give your friend 5 seconds and ask him to draw a Q on his own forehead. Note the direction of the Q’s tail. The kind of Q he draws, will determine if he is a good or a bad liar. For results, read on. Or watch the following video. [Video]
Self-Awareness test
According to a Psychology paper published by Hass, R. G. in the year 1984, a simple 5-second test can determine, with a good accuracy, if the person you are meeting is a good liar or a bad liar. In other words, it can determine if someone you meet, bears an ability to evade detection while lying or is more likely to get caught.
Extroverts: This liar test is based on a hypothesis that if a person is well aware of how other people see him, or in other words, is a social-situation-ninja, then the person is more likely to be able to evade detection while lying. This comes naturally to extroverts who are well aware of how others see them – which enables them to escape detection by exploiting this knowledge of other people’s perspective.
Introverts, however, aren’t very good at lying because they are self-focused, having less information on how a person they are dealing with sees them. So, when they lie, they normally get caught.
So, to catch a liar you could use a test designed to tell you, if a person’s actions are based on how others see them, or are based on how they see things. This is exactly what the Q test does.
Good liar: Some one who draws the letter Q in a way that would look right to a person looking at them, can be said to be well aware of how others see them. As a result, they can be labeled good liars (not always).
Bad Liar: If they draw it in a way that looks like a Q to them, and looks like an inverted Q to someone looking at them, then you can say that they are not well aware of how people look at them.
It is common sense that this test only works when the person you testing this on, doesn’t know about the test. Also, it isn’t a 100% accurate test.
At first, not knowing about the test, I tried it on me. I turned out to be an introvert and a bad liar – Quite accurate, I must say.
Almost everything that has something spinning, probably has, one or a system of gears hidden inside it. Open up a CD drive, or anything that spins, and you’ll see. Mechanical engineers spend a good amount of time learning about traditional gear systems in their courses. I’ve compiled a few gear videos here, that are probably not covered in any educational institution’s syllabus. (please inform me in the comments section if you have them in your course)
1. Crazy shapes: While, It is popularly believed that gears have to be circular to work properly, it should be noted that gears can literally bear any shape and work fine, as long as they are designed well. In the following video we can see how carefully designed gears in square, oval, spiral, fish shapes, and any other out of the ordinary shapes, can be made to work together perfectly. [video]
Some other artistic wooden gear sculpture can be seen in the link here. Engineering meets art [Here] Build at home: Turns out, with computers in every home these days, designing these gears isn’t rocket science. Enterprising engineers can use this fairly detailed 5-minute video tutorial to cut out weird gear shapes at home. The process of designing can be automated by using jerry’s script. [video]
2. Unpredictable moves – Gears can sometimes work together to provide a mechanical advantage in a system and can end up moving in a pretty unpredictable manner. The following video is a perfect example of how gear ratios can mess with the heads of non-engineers. The guy calls his machine – under the ruler faster than the ruler – watch it and you’ll understand why. [video]
It isn’t magic. If it still confuses you, here is a great post that explains a similar phenomenon that uses gears to build a “faster than wind cart (DDWFTW)“.
3. Reduction gear system with a fixed gear in the end: I wanted to keep this craziest reduction gear system for the end. It is the one that blew my mind. And the ones who think the number 1 and number 2 are ordinary systems they meet everyday in the lab, they need to check this one out.
This system designed by Arthur Ganson transcends engineering and moves into the realm of art. It consists of a motor that spins at 212 revs per minute. To the motor are attached twelve 50-1 reduction gears in series.
The most incredible part – the last gear in this series appears as if it is fixed, but it actually turns. It moves so slow, that it has been sealed into the wall using concrete. Even when the motor is turned on, it appears fixed with rest of the system moving continuously. It is estimated that if it wasn’t fixed, the gear would have taken 2 trillion years to make a complete revolution. In fact the third and the gears after that in this system don’t appear to be moving too.
Today we talk about Manchineel – An evil tree that is found in Florida, Caribbean and several other places around it. It holds the Guinness book of world record for the most dangerous tree, and you have a fair reason to stay at least ten feet away from it, if you ever go on a vacation to Florida, Caribbean or other nearby places.
What can it do?
Touch any part of this tree, its bark, leaves, fruits etc, and you’ll be left with serious blisters on your skin. The blisters will come with an excruciating pain that even after being treated by a doctor will continue to trouble you for several days. That’s not all.
If anything from this tree goes into your eyes, by anything I mean, even the rain water that touches the plant, you could end up with the kind of pain you’d have never experienced or could even make you go blind.
Swallowing a part of its little apple-like fruit will ensure that you get painful blisters on the internal walls of your mouth and throat. Try eating the complete, sweet smelling and pleasant tasting fruit and it will easily kill you. In fact in Spanish they call it manzanilla de la muerte; meaning – the little apple of death.
Try to get rid of it by breaking its branches or cutting the trunk and it will squirt its sap on your skin, inflicting you with the painful long-lasting blisters once again.
Try burning it down, while turning into ash, it will ensure that the smoke it exudes, makes you and others standing near it, go blind.
Is this tree any useful?
Yes. The Indians that used to live around the Caribbean used the sap derived from the plant to poison their darts and arrows. Also, they used the stump of this tree to tie up invaders. It killed them within a few hours.
How to avoid?
Pretty easy! The identified trees all around the region are marked with a red sign board that clearly tells you to stay away. So, do that.
In case you find a wild unmarked tree, stay away from anything that has leaves which look like shiny apple-tree-leaves and bears a deliciously sweet-smelling yellow/green little-apple like fruit.
Fun facts:
Despite having a bad name for its poisonous parts, there is an animal that can eat its fruit without experiencing any ill effects – A land crab found in the region. [Source]
In the Telugu language, Manchineel means something that can never be related to a tree which turns the water to poisoned water. Manchineel translates to – pure water or potable water in Telugu.
