Dr. Jeannine Mosely finishes building a level-3 Menger sponge from business cards. You can also build your own, though Dr. Mosely warns, "[a] level 4 sponge would require almost a million cards and weigh over a ton. I do not believe it could support its own weight — so a level 3 is the biggest sponge we can hope to build." (related)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Feb 2, 2007 - 19 comments

Measuring beauty through arson and ships launched. Introducing the Helen as a unit of beauty. There are plenty of odd units of measure. Some are natural extensions of physical measures, like the microcentury or the pico-parsec, while others are constantly being invented. Can't figure out how large your apartment is? Use a handy converter to measure its area in terms of Wales (or whales, or the Prince of Wales). Of course, despite a long history of odd changes, units are still the subject of political fights and even human rights monitoring.
posted by blahblahblah on Apr 19, 2005 - 16 comments