You know what grinds my gears?
June 13, 2016 4:41 PM Subscribe
Maybe you're bothered by three-gear logos. You know, the ones where the three gears all intermesh and wouldn't actually be able to turn, thus ruining the metaphor? Well, it turns out you can create three intermeshed gears that all move together.
That's very cool.
But isn't it simpler to imagine that the classic three are simply not aligned on the Z axis, and the "middle" gear is nice and fat so the others are effectively side by side? Not sure why you would do that mechanically, but it would work.
I guess I am a boring person.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:52 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
But isn't it simpler to imagine that the classic three are simply not aligned on the Z axis, and the "middle" gear is nice and fat so the others are effectively side by side? Not sure why you would do that mechanically, but it would work.
I guess I am a boring person.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:52 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
The side shown above has a design in the center depicting a chariot wheel. Around this are the gridlocked gears, then a printed circuit, and a pattern which represents the internet.
The inner roundel depicts melting metal. The bronze and iron ages being the first stage of technology in this scheme.
I actually find the other side of the coin more unrealistic. It shows an image of Queen Elizabeth which stops abruptly after her shoulders. Everybody knows that Elizabeth has at least two arms and a positive integer number of legs. Did the coin designers not study biology?
posted by Emma May Smith at 5:00 PM on June 13, 2016 [27 favorites]
The inner roundel depicts melting metal. The bronze and iron ages being the first stage of technology in this scheme.
I actually find the other side of the coin more unrealistic. It shows an image of Queen Elizabeth which stops abruptly after her shoulders. Everybody knows that Elizabeth has at least two arms and a positive integer number of legs. Did the coin designers not study biology?
posted by Emma May Smith at 5:00 PM on June 13, 2016 [27 favorites]
The man named Darren Dowling who wrote to his government to complain about the function of imaginary gears printed on a coin, received a polite response from a weary bureaucrat, and dismissed it as “arty farty wiffle waffle” is someone who would not be fun at any party I throw. I have trouble with people who clearly have a desire to make the world better but misallocate their efforts on trivial bullshit.
posted by savetheclocktower at 5:03 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by savetheclocktower at 5:03 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
I was expecting the Royal Mint's answer to be something along the lines of "Each gear represents one of the 19 British counties that were the origin of the Industrial Revolution" or something, but was pleased that it was a polite version of "Why? Because fuck you, that's why."
posted by ejs at 5:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by ejs at 5:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
Besides the impressive thinking behind this thing, I was also inspired by the quality of the 3D printing.
posted by drezdn at 5:11 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by drezdn at 5:11 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
The video is kind of crappy, but this is one of my favorite LEGO videos ever. The way those gears fit and run perfectly withing the large circular gear is soooooooooo sooooooooothing.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:19 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:19 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
The people are the glue that holds together the gears of society!
posted by palindromic at 5:19 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by palindromic at 5:19 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
Henry Segerman does really cool 3D printing and other mathematical pursuits.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:22 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 5:22 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
I have trouble with people who clearly have a desire to make the world better but misallocate their efforts on trivial bullshit.
posted by savetheclocktower
Best eponysterical comment of the year!
posted by rock swoon has no past at 5:36 PM on June 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by savetheclocktower
Best eponysterical comment of the year!
posted by rock swoon has no past at 5:36 PM on June 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
If you thought that was cool, kindly allow Oskar van Deventer to calmly blow your freaking mind.
posted by phooky at 5:59 PM on June 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by phooky at 5:59 PM on June 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
The man named Darren Dowling who wrote to his government to complain about the function of imaginary gears printed on a coin, received a polite response from a weary bureaucrat, and dismissed it as “arty farty wiffle waffle” is someone who...
I want to have at every party I throw. I mean, there's obviously a line, but this guy isn't out there getting signatures on petitions or doing sit-ins or hunger strikes to get the coin changed... he just noticed that the thing was wrong and wrote an email and got a crappy answer to it. Maybe next time the Royal Mint gets the idea to represent "technology," they might consider the actual technology as well.
Darren Dowling is working to make the world a better place and is my kind of person.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
I want to have at every party I throw. I mean, there's obviously a line, but this guy isn't out there getting signatures on petitions or doing sit-ins or hunger strikes to get the coin changed... he just noticed that the thing was wrong and wrote an email and got a crappy answer to it. Maybe next time the Royal Mint gets the idea to represent "technology," they might consider the actual technology as well.
Darren Dowling is working to make the world a better place and is my kind of person.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
It's great what 3D printing has allowed us to do: prove that such things can exist. Yet, I really want to see that trefoil gear done up in perfectly machined steel, drenched in clean cool lubricant, spinning at about 10,000 rpms.
posted by rlk at 6:09 PM on June 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by rlk at 6:09 PM on June 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
I was genuinely excited to find out about some sort of clever stepped cam process that would actually solve this, and the three basically analogous 3D designs were, though cool in and of themselves, severely disappointing.
The gears on the two pound coin were the first thing I checked (thanks, Usborne puzzle adventures), and while I might not die on that particular hill I'll definitely tut loudly as I walk back down. You don't get to claim "symbolism" as an excuse for producing a symbol diametrically opposed to your intent. It's like drawing a hand strangling a throat and calling it kind of a handshake.
As an aside, this is one of my favourite gear arrangements.
posted by lucidium at 6:16 PM on June 13, 2016 [12 favorites]
The gears on the two pound coin were the first thing I checked (thanks, Usborne puzzle adventures), and while I might not die on that particular hill I'll definitely tut loudly as I walk back down. You don't get to claim "symbolism" as an excuse for producing a symbol diametrically opposed to your intent. It's like drawing a hand strangling a throat and calling it kind of a handshake.
As an aside, this is one of my favourite gear arrangements.
posted by lucidium at 6:16 PM on June 13, 2016 [12 favorites]
It's like drawing a hand strangling a throat and calling it kind of a handshake.
Which is actually a thing: Shawinigan Handshake
posted by GuyZero at 6:20 PM on June 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
Which is actually a thing: Shawinigan Handshake
posted by GuyZero at 6:20 PM on June 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
Some of those models are oddly satisfying to watch. Thanks for sharing this.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:08 PM on June 13, 2016
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:08 PM on June 13, 2016
That was great. Thanks for sharing!
posted by DakotaPaul at 7:14 PM on June 13, 2016
posted by DakotaPaul at 7:14 PM on June 13, 2016
The eye diagram points toward something which has been bothering me for awhile.
We all know that for perfectly corrected vision, the light hits the retina just after the point of convergence of the light cone, and we therefore have an upside down image on the retina, as shown in the diagram.
However, the geometry of the light cone would seem to suggest that as good an image is available in the light path just before the point of convergence, and my memories of a whole bunch of messing around with magnifying glasses as a kid seem to bear this out (although given the concavity of the retina, I suppose an identical except for orientation image might require a convex surface before the point of convergence).
Myopia, or near-sightedness, results when the retina is too far behind the point of convergence.
But what happens when a person is very far-sighted? In that case, the retina would be in front of the point of convergence, and you would think the highest quality image such a person would be able to form on the retina would actually be right side up (because it's before the point of convergence), and that's what they'd get used to.
And not only that, when you went to improve such a person's vision with corrective lenses by the usual trial and error method, it seems probable to me that the prescription you'd arrive at would leave that person with an image which was still right side up on the retina, because it seems very unlikely that suddenly flipping the image on the retina from the orientation it's had time out of mind could be anything but disorienting.
posted by jamjam at 8:58 PM on June 13, 2016
We all know that for perfectly corrected vision, the light hits the retina just after the point of convergence of the light cone, and we therefore have an upside down image on the retina, as shown in the diagram.
However, the geometry of the light cone would seem to suggest that as good an image is available in the light path just before the point of convergence, and my memories of a whole bunch of messing around with magnifying glasses as a kid seem to bear this out (although given the concavity of the retina, I suppose an identical except for orientation image might require a convex surface before the point of convergence).
Myopia, or near-sightedness, results when the retina is too far behind the point of convergence.
But what happens when a person is very far-sighted? In that case, the retina would be in front of the point of convergence, and you would think the highest quality image such a person would be able to form on the retina would actually be right side up (because it's before the point of convergence), and that's what they'd get used to.
And not only that, when you went to improve such a person's vision with corrective lenses by the usual trial and error method, it seems probable to me that the prescription you'd arrive at would leave that person with an image which was still right side up on the retina, because it seems very unlikely that suddenly flipping the image on the retina from the orientation it's had time out of mind could be anything but disorienting.
posted by jamjam at 8:58 PM on June 13, 2016
I liked the video. "So this is another solution to the problem ...wasn't really a problem that needed solving, but there you go."
posted by teponaztli at 9:40 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by teponaztli at 9:40 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
But the problematic gears as used in graphic design still wouldn't work.
posted by yesster at 10:04 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yesster at 10:04 PM on June 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Some friends and I decided to build a wooden clocktower about 10 years ago and thought it would be cool to make the gears to of wood ,and really BIG.
Turns out there is no reason for the gears to be big at all Hugo really bothered me this way ( I have the old gearbox for the Oakland Tribune clock tower in my garage, It weighs 30 lbs) in fact it caused all sorts of problems, and the pendulum stays the same size no matter how big the clock is, we had to gear it down about 5:1 to get a pendulum that looked long enough. and the gears were about 40" in diameter.
We pretty much taught ourselves horology in about 4 months, accurate to about 4 seconds an hr with the gearbox exposed to the weather.
posted by boilermonster at 11:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Turns out there is no reason for the gears to be big at all Hugo really bothered me this way ( I have the old gearbox for the Oakland Tribune clock tower in my garage, It weighs 30 lbs) in fact it caused all sorts of problems, and the pendulum stays the same size no matter how big the clock is, we had to gear it down about 5:1 to get a pendulum that looked long enough. and the gears were about 40" in diameter.
We pretty much taught ourselves horology in about 4 months, accurate to about 4 seconds an hr with the gearbox exposed to the weather.
posted by boilermonster at 11:08 PM on June 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
The one that is three straight pieces gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:15 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:15 PM on June 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
The annoying thing for me is that instead of meshing all three gears they could get the desired effect of showing inter-connectivity by wrapping three non meshing gears in a chain. Easy Peasy and it wouldn't set anyone with an inkling of mechanical ability teeth on edge.
i_am_joe's_spleen: "Not sure why you would do that mechanically, but it would work."
Not quite what you were describing but a multiple gear reduction often stacks the gears on top of each other. Mechanical defrost timers using a synchronous motor would have as many as eleven gears to reduce their 3600 rpm down to 1, 2, or 3 revolutions per 24 hour period.
posted by Mitheral at 12:02 AM on June 14, 2016
i_am_joe's_spleen: "Not sure why you would do that mechanically, but it would work."
Not quite what you were describing but a multiple gear reduction often stacks the gears on top of each other. Mechanical defrost timers using a synchronous motor would have as many as eleven gears to reduce their 3600 rpm down to 1, 2, or 3 revolutions per 24 hour period.
posted by Mitheral at 12:02 AM on June 14, 2016
jamjam, that is not how image projection works.
The projected image being upside-down is from the simple geometry of light rays passing through a hole and hitting the surface on the opposite side they entered from. It's the same with a pinhole camera, as it is with a lens.
posted by w0mbat at 3:04 AM on June 14, 2016
The projected image being upside-down is from the simple geometry of light rays passing through a hole and hitting the surface on the opposite side they entered from. It's the same with a pinhole camera, as it is with a lens.
posted by w0mbat at 3:04 AM on June 14, 2016
Nice.
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:55 AM on June 14, 2016
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:55 AM on June 14, 2016
W0mbat, can you explain that in more detail? Because my understanding of optics is pretty limited, but I was also pretty sure that the image doesn't flip until you get past the convergence point. I don't have time to research that, but I'd be interested to know.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:11 AM on June 14, 2016
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:11 AM on June 14, 2016
Seems like a good place to drop Machine Woth Concrete
posted by rustcrumb at 10:45 AM on June 14, 2016
posted by rustcrumb at 10:45 AM on June 14, 2016
(Re: discussion with jamjam, w0mbat, AoaNLAT) See this diagram to understand why even far-sighted people must get an upside-down image on their retina.
Key point: The location where rays originating from the same point in the scene converge in a non-pinhole lens design is not the same place where rays from different points in the scene cross each other.
A pinhole lens is a useful counterpoint. A pinhole lens does not need to be focused because it only accepts one ray per point in the scene. Regardless, the image is still flipped. Non-pinhole lenses accept multiple rays per point in the scene, thus have to focus those rays to a specific focal plane distance in the image.
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:58 AM on June 14, 2016
Key point: The location where rays originating from the same point in the scene converge in a non-pinhole lens design is not the same place where rays from different points in the scene cross each other.
A pinhole lens is a useful counterpoint. A pinhole lens does not need to be focused because it only accepts one ray per point in the scene. Regardless, the image is still flipped. Non-pinhole lenses accept multiple rays per point in the scene, thus have to focus those rays to a specific focal plane distance in the image.
posted by 0xFCAF at 10:58 AM on June 14, 2016
Gears aside, one of my favorite projects by Henry Segerman is his topological generalization of the board game go.
posted by likethemagician at 12:13 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by likethemagician at 12:13 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: drenched in clean cool lubricant, spinning at about 10,000 rpms.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:14 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by furnace.heart at 12:14 PM on June 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
The writer of the first link must really be a lot of fun at cocktail parties.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:28 PM on June 14, 2016
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:28 PM on June 14, 2016
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