31 Things Cut In Half To Reveal Their Complicated Inner Workings

July 2, 2015 7:42 PM

31 Things Cut In Half To Reveal Their Complicated Inner Workings
posted by Chocolate Pickle (26 comments total)

Sausage casing.
posted by clavdivs at 7:56 PM on July 2, 2015

That bowling ball?! I had no idea they could do that. Don't seem right.
posted by Flashman at 8:00 PM on July 2, 2015 [7 favorites]

Yes - are those channels meant to allow ball bearings/a fluid/a rotating ring to act as a gyroscope?
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:05 PM on July 2, 2015

Saw open a gyroscope!
posted by clavdivs at 8:14 PM on July 2, 2015

YouTube video on the bowling ball.

I know little of bowling, but I don't get the impression there are any moving parts in there. I do get the impression that some of the claims made in the video might be mumbo jumbo, but I can't say for sure.

The weight block is designed to make the ball wobble in a controlled way. Wikipedia says:

On successive rotations, the "full roller" repeatedly contacts the lane on the same full circumferential circle, on which the oil accumulates, making it harder for the side-roll to find traction and create hooking action ... With a 3/4-roller a bowler puts the ball into a rotation whose contact ring is smaller, and on successive rotations enlarges (subsequent examination of the ball often shows a flaring of the circles of oil). This is because at every spot along the circle, friction reduces the rotation, and that includes the spin component, causing rotation on a continually larger circle. This has the effect of bringing relatively dry ball surface in contact with the lane, increasing traction for both forward-roll and side-roll.

I did not know bowling was so complicated.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:24 PM on July 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

OK the bowling ball. This in the thing that blew my mind. All the complex mechanical stuff I understand. I just assumed a ball was a ball.
posted by MrBobaFett at 8:25 PM on July 2, 2015 [7 favorites]

People, those are solid gold components in that Lexus transmission.
posted by mattoxic at 8:46 PM on July 2, 2015

Also -seems to be mainly violent death bringing things cut in half. If you've seen one bullet or shell cut in half...
posted by mattoxic at 8:48 PM on July 2, 2015 [7 favorites]

Mattoxic, I think it's more likely they're bronze. Gold would be terrible for something like this because it's soft.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:10 PM on July 2, 2015

Inside A Modern Balloon - by B. Kliban
posted by anazgnos at 9:19 PM on July 2, 2015 [6 favorites]

Geez, Kliban. Died much too young...
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 9:24 PM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Everything is made of Transformers!
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:25 PM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Somewhat related klystrons and other microwave components are incredible things to see the inside of, I have a good number of different microwave components in various states from my grandfather and am constantly amazed how simple they look on the inside, compared to what they did.
posted by ilama at 9:32 PM on July 2, 2015

Holy shit, that watch is absurd. Oh, and it's $675k, something something 1%, but the cutaway is incredible.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:14 PM on July 2, 2015

The last one (Apollo Space Suit) describes a "self-sealing patch for emergency medication" on the leg. I was curious what this was all about, and so I dug up this fascinating paper: Breaking the Pressure Barrier: A History of the Spacesuit Injection Patch. Apparently everyone had forgotten about it until a couple years ago, so some NASA folks literally took an old one apart and tracked down some of the people responsible to figure out what it was and how it worked.

It seems nobody ever used the thing, except the paper reports that some poor test subject had to be injected with saline to try it out. according to NASA, they carried special custom-made injectors for Demerol and Marezine (which is apparently another way of saying Cyclizine, carried for motion sickness).
posted by zachlipton at 10:32 PM on July 2, 2015 [6 favorites]

My wife and I were on that ship. They screwed up the sanitary plumbing when they lengthened it, so the toilets were backed up or out of commission half the time. We called it Outhouse Of The Seas.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:42 PM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]

I wondered what bowling balls really look like on the inside after that fight scene in "Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning" where one's shattered in mid-air. Didn't look like that, but maybe it was a cheaper model.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:23 AM on July 3, 2015

That's definitely a newer, high-end bowling ball. We busted one in half in college (it took a drop from over 5 floors up!) and it looked nothing like that. It was a regular round core surrounded by an evenly distributed outer shell.
posted by dogwalker at 2:08 AM on July 3, 2015

Don't look like you could see much from inside that Stormtrooper's helmet... no wonder they never hit anything
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:20 AM on July 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

There is a subReddit for cutaway diagrams and photos of things.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 4:40 AM on July 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

The History Channel had a whole series of this a few years back, a programme called Sliced. Watched a few as the eldest boy was on a 'Mythbusters or anything similar' jag at the time.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:36 AM on July 3, 2015

If you think a CT machine's internals aren't scary enough, watch it in operation.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:47 AM on July 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Needs fewer killing devices and fictional items, but an interesting idea.
posted by rocket88 at 6:07 AM on July 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

Q: How do you saw a 6 Inch Aerial Display Firework in half?

A: Very carefully
posted by sidereal at 8:07 AM on July 3, 2015

one must really appreciate the amount of thought and work put into finding ways to kill people more efficiently
posted by yann at 9:40 AM on July 3, 2015

sidereal: "Q: How do you saw a 6 Inch Aerial Display Firework in half?

A: Very carefully"

Fireworks are actually assembled a half at a time, and then the two halves are put together to make the final firework, so that photo is an unassembled firework, not a finished firework that was then bisected.
posted by Bugbread at 11:20 PM on July 6, 2015 [1 favorite]