Head Shrinker

November 22, 2009 12:44 PM

The Quarter Shrinker as constructed by Rob Flickenger at Hackerbot Labs in conjunction with Intellectual Ventures Lab. flickr photo set of shrunken coins. The physics behind coin shrinking. Coin World May 2009 article (PDF). Another Shrunken Head Guy.
posted by cjorgensen (22 comments total)

Meh, Rick Moranis mastered this 20 years ago.

seriously though, that's pretty fucking cool.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:02 PM on November 22, 2009

Adding 1/4" steel plates has stopped the Lexan blast shield from fracturing. However, future designs will use 1/2" thick AR400 steel armor plate to better withstand deformation from repetitive hammering by supersonic coil fragments.

See, this is how you know you're serious about this kind of tinkering. You're not a real mad scientist until you've destroyed a blast shield or two. Awesome.
posted by FishBike at 1:10 PM on November 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

Way cooler than those stupid penny crushers. I'd do my part to destroy old coins if they had these around rest stops.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:37 PM on November 22, 2009

So I assume the mass of the coin remains unchanged and the coin just increases its width accordingly?
posted by prunes at 2:39 PM on November 22, 2009

If you put it on a train track, does it flatten back into a regular quarter?
posted by rokusan at 2:44 PM on November 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Kids these days. In my time we would just lay a nickel bee side up down on the rail tracks and wait for the evening Providence and Worcester with its heavy tank cars full of steaming chowder to roll that nickel flat enough to open your dinner oyster. Those were good times. None of this fancy wiseacre plasma nonsense for me, no sir.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:48 PM on November 22, 2009

prunes: "So I assume the mass of the coin remains unchanged and the coin just increases its width accordingly?"

Yep, the coins get thicker when their diameter decreases. I think it says as much in the first link, actually. Probably the same is true of the copper wire coil that shrinks them, but I imagine it's hard to find all the remains of it to be sure.
posted by FishBike at 2:49 PM on November 22, 2009

The commentary on one of the videos said the copper vaporizes, thus explaining the green smoke. And yes, it does say they get thinker. This is actually noticeable in some of the photos.

And a true mad scientist also needs a gratuitous explosions reel. They have this.


Also the videos on this page are freaking cool. Lichtenberg sculptures. I couldn't figure out how to work them into the post. I guess it would have made a better link than my last one though.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:00 PM on November 22, 2009

Insert obligatory joke about the shrinking dollar here.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:05 PM on November 22, 2009

Q: WHY IS THE FLAME GREEN?

A: THE COPPER COIL JUST VAPORIZED

ME: FUCK YES IT DID.
posted by middleclasstool at 3:05 PM on November 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold has, through Intellectual Ventures Lab, found a technology to shrink his money, but it in no ways compares to the remarkable efficiency with which the innate natural talent of Paul Allen allows him to do the same.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:15 PM on November 22, 2009

Insert obligatory joke about the shrinking dollar here.

Yeah, my joke, and I couldn't get myself to title the post this way, was going to be, "Want a little head?"
posted by cjorgensen at 4:22 PM on November 22, 2009

Wait, Intellectual Ventures actually makes things? I thought they just sat around bullshitting about hacks, then had an army of lawyers file patents on everything they came up with.
posted by Nelson at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2009

"Want a little head?"

The way I heard it, there was a request for a "12-inch pianist."
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:42 PM on November 22, 2009

Hah. I have one of these. It doesn't make green smoke, but I don't have to set up blast shields, either.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:08 PM on November 22, 2009

Actually something like this was one of the first things I came across surfing the web in a computer lab back in 1994. It was being done by some scientists with real equipment.
posted by delmoi at 5:20 PM on November 22, 2009

United States Patent                                   11,204,239
                                                    Nov. 22, 2009
_________________________________________________________________

PATENT TROLL SHRINKER

ABSTRACT
Pulsed power is used to generate a very high current 
"electromagnetic forming" pulse over a very short time interval. 
Large-diameter wires relay pulse current for delivery via the
distribution apparatus, which comprises a conductive copper mesh
epoxied firmly to the scrotal regions of a patent troll. 

posted by killdevil at 5:39 PM on November 22, 2009

Previously on Metafilter.
posted by Daddy-O at 6:29 PM on November 22, 2009

ka-POW!
posted by Drasher at 6:36 PM on November 22, 2009

Quarter shrinker? What I need is a nickel increaser.
posted by pantsonfire at 7:46 PM on November 22, 2009

I like the goatse-pucker effect (SFW!) with the five-yen coin.
posted by chavenet at 4:00 AM on November 23, 2009

So I assume the mass of the coin remains unchanged and the coin just increases its width accordingly?

Yes, pretty much, although the result is not perfect. I have US quarter a fellow engineer at work made but I've never checked to see if its mass is still the same (have they varied over the years?). Fun effect, but I always thought that having to replace the apparatus each time was less than optimal.
posted by tommasz at 9:25 AM on November 23, 2009