Slashdot Mirror
Making Small Change
dimnet writes "The Quarter Shrinker uses a technique called high velocity electromagnetic metal forming, or "Magneforming". This technique was originally developed by the aerospace industry, and has been popularized by Aerovox, Grumman, and Maxwell. It involves discharging a high energy capacitor bank through a work coil to generate a very powerful, rapidly changing magnetic field which then interacts with and "forms" the metal to be fabricated. It only works with metals of relatively high conductivity, such as copper or aluminum alloys, although it will work to a more limited extent with sheet steel...." The site has some awesome pictures of small metal objects which have been victimized. [Update: 02/22 by michael : Note that the entire original site has been taken down and replaced with banner ads - however, there are working mirror links in the comments below.]
Sure enough, magnets and electromagnets are allowed. However, electricity-based weapons are not. So, actually, I'm not sure where this falls ;).
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
All Dogs Go To
Pet Sematary
Josh Hinman
Yeah, *he* typed all that, but the guys with the time machines who've posted the same thing to several other stories on previous days obviously practiced their plagarism by way of cut 'n' paste.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's not a phony article.
I'm not really sure what's going on in this instance, but the original link was Slashdotted in a big way ('connection refused' errors galore). One of the following must have happened:
Other possibilities no doubt exist. The point is that, yes, there is a real site; it's just hard to get to at the moment. There was a link to a mirror in an earlier post, which works fine.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I vaguely remember the method used to power an experimental particle beam weapon developed by the sobviet union. This thing was massive, but the power supply system for firing was amazing - They would build up current on a load of *huge* coils and when the time was ready to fire they would switch circuits ans the collapsing magnetic fields would produce a huge power output.
They didn't stop there though, the coils were designed to be compressed rapidly by shaped explosives, so the shrunk coils in the same filed would generate even larger power surges. Basically a load of the energy of the explosives went into a huge electrical blast.
switch to banner ads! Slash-bait-and-switch. How ingenious. In fact you could automate the process - whenever you web site is getting over a certain number of hits/unit time, switch the content to paid-for ads, sort of like building up to a dramatic climax during a tv program and then pausing for a few commercial messages.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
...with cool fun electric toys. Look at the first "Can crusher" image... there in the background is a classic "Jacob's Ladder" device. So that's what they do with their neon-sign transformer when it's not charging high-energy capacitors!
--Jim
It used to be illegal to deface coins. You can see this in old jewelry where coins were held inside ring mounts to avoid drilling holes through the coins.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
in what way?
Could this be used on something like a microprocessor?
Yeah, but it'll void the warrenty :)
No, it is not.
You can mangle, modify, slice, grind, etc. coins any way you want.
It is illegal to try to use them as money after you do so, however...
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Could this work on the atomic scale? Could this be used on something like a microprocessor?
These guys have arrays of high performance web servers. That's what they claim. It's fraud. Let's get them investigated by the government. Yeah, that should do it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I originally went to the site when there was ONE comment on /. and it had already been /.'d by then (many non-connects, many connect and hang, many connect and disconnect, what little data showed up was minutes late). This aquila.net CLAIMS to have many high performance servers. But instead, I suggest they are a FRAUD that reveals why many companies are failing on the net.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My old roommate worked at Blockbuster and arranged these three movies on the "Coming Next Month" board above the checkout: My Giant Big and Hairy Dick -B
I don't think your penis can get any smaller.
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
I know it sounds fantastic and insane, but I'm not making this up. Go ask an economics professor, or go to the library and do a little research (I'm assuming that you won't believe any webpage I point you to).
At the root of the modern monetary system is the central bank: privately owned but heavily regulated so it is effectively government run.
The central bank has the power to create money directly, without any assets to back it up, but only in the form of loans (and anybody allowed to borrow money from the central bank is so regulated that they must pay it back). While the government may mint cash, if they wish to keep it they must consider it borrowed from the central bank and pay interest on it.
When somebody has a positive balance in a bank account, they are considered to have that much money. So the total amount of money out there is cash plus account balances. Debts are not subtracted (if they were, there would always be a negative total amount of money). When somebody takes out a loan, their account balance is increased, but nobody's account balance is reduced. If the loan-created money is withdrawn as cash or transferred to another bank, then the bank's holdings are reduced, but another bank's are increased by the same amount. When the loan is "paid off" from the borrower's account, the banker simply strikes off the liability from their record books and only takes the interest as profit that remains spendable "money" (the reason why has to do with the "fractional reserve" rules and regulations that prevent them from just giving themselves a billion dollars whenever they feel like it). The total amount of money is thus reduced.
Banks only need to have a small percentage of their liabilities (the money in accounts at their bank) as cash in their vaults or in their account at the central bank. So they can "lend" money by simply increasing someone's account in their records. There is no "pot" to fund other loans. Unless your bank has recently experienced a run, they have no effective limit on how much money they may lend out (i.e. they don't need to have it to lend it). Though if they need to transfer funds to another bank or hand out cash they may need to take out loans of their own from the central bank, and pay interest on it. They are protected from being unable to pay out what they are owed (in cash or as transfers to another bank) because the central bank always has more and never refuses to loan a bank in good legal standing money they need (which is why it is called the "lender of last resort").
As for burning physical cash when loans are paid off (specifically loans to the central bank, which is the root source of all cash, and is drawing interest on all of it in circulation at all times), that is done quite commonly. This is called "taking it out of circulation", and there isn't always exactly the same amount of new cash minted (in fact, there is no direct connection between cash destroyed and cash printed, other than that they go through the same institution). In anticipation of Y2K panic, the government had extra cash printed up. After the scare was over, the cash supply was reduced by printing less cash than was collected.
The rules and regulations needed to make such an insane system work at all are far, far too complicated to get into here.
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What would you call it if you did this to an IBM Microdrive?
The resulting object is more dense then the previous one, or at least I am assuming so. The Law of Conservation of Matter it is called (or mass/energy or whatever).
When can I get this for my battlebot?!?!
The idea of using induced electic field repulsion for metal forming is being investigated by one of the professors in my department at the Ohio State University.
He is working on using this same effect to imrove the formability of alloys that are problematic - namely he is interested in Aluminum for use in automobile bodies. You can get more ductility and formability out of some materials if oyu form them at very high strain rates, and the idea here is that you form the rough shape with conventional techniques and then you zap the metal with electromagnetic field in the areas with detail or sharp features in order to "fill out" the mold.
There's a copy of some of the pictures from the quarter shrinker taped up on his door.
For people that have been wondering how the coin gets smaller and retains its features without breaking the laws of physics - it is getting thicker. Look at the site - one of the quarters is balooned into a sphere. It de-laminated at the silver-copper layer!
His grad students are in the room next to ours and ever time they discharge their capacitor bank it makes the monitors on the wall adjacent to their room shudder... and it makes a hell of a bang.
+++ ATH0 +++
Thanks... The original link now connects to a freaking advertising page, with freaking popups yet.
Schmucks.
I know that this technique is possible. I've read about it in at least 1 if not more college physics textbooks, but this site smells. The images, especially that last one, is iffy at best. I have a sinking feeling that our esteemed /. editors got take for a ride on this one.
as for the banner-ad filled page, I've heard of the domain name game going this route. You register a domain name through one of those cut-rate places and then, when your site is popular, they yank the name from you...
just some thoughts.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Or render it unfit for circulation?
Or are coins exempt from this?
Believe it or not, the U.S. Federal reserve already plans on using this tool to counteract the damaging force of inflation on our country's economy. In fact, according to high-level sources that I cannot name for obvious reasons, the first of these new coins will come out in April, for Delaware. Coins will then follow in step in the order the new coins were introduced. Similar plans are in order for the new Sackagawea (sp?) dollar; however, the serrated edge is adding numerous complications to the project. It is hoped that the new, deflated coins will offset inflationary pressures... or something.
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Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
Try this link or this link istead...
Read my diary.
A shrunken coin weighs exactly the same afterwards, and its density is also unchanged - it's merely the shape that's been altered.
Ever hear of Shrinky Dinks? This plastic material goes through a similar transformation when heated in a regular food oven. Two dimensions shrink, while it gets thicker to maintain the same volume and density.
[
This technique was used in the 1960's on parts of the Saturn V rocket. It was ideal for shaping the super thin aluminum pressure vessels at the front of each stage (and, in the case of the first stage) the back pressure vessels (the different in temperature between the kerosene and the LOX was so high that they couldn't use integral tanks).
Engineers used to demonstrate how this worked without touching anything by putting pieces of tissue paper between the former and the surface being formed. After they were done, they would take out the unscarred piece of paper and show it.
The Saturn CII stage needed to get the forward tank pressure vessels into the basic shape to be magnaformed, but it was tricky because they didn't have anything that could create perfect curved pie slices that would be welded together to make the item, so they suspended the pieces of metal in water tanks and set off explosives. This allowed them to shape the metal using the shockwaves.
Sweet.
http://www.perljam.net/misc/tesla/people.ce.mediao ne.net/bert-hickman/frames/shrinkergallery.html
-ted
Here you go. The site is already /.'ed
http://people.ce.mediaone.net/bert-hickman/frames/ shrinker.html
-Jessupx
Here it is
I read slashdot for the articles.
can it change pennies into quarters?
No, but for 20, we can turn a quarter into a nickel. (would that be inflation or deflation?)
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Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Simple, the enourmous magnetic field produced by the coil induces a secondary current in the object to be crushed. The induced current produces its own magnetic field and this is what the primary field works against.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
You should note that that isn't the real Heidi Wall that you are responding to, note the spelling (Wall vs. Walll). You've just been trolled by one of those 19 year old boys ;-)
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
and why would one want to use such a thing? Perhaps that is why we in California are having an energy shortage. People shrinking metals over at Intel!
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It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Yep, you're correct. It appears the the quarter grows thicker to compensate for the smaller diameter. Look at this photo to see for yourself. (note, this is on a mirror, so I don't know how long it will last)
Doh!
I once worked at Sperry Vickers' hydraulics R&D center, which used a magneformer to squeeze metal bearing rings onto steel valve bobbins. The working coil used for this was about 10 turns of half-inch square copper busbar. Worked fine; no sparks, no explosions, just a "thump" and the job was done.
some "asked slashdot" how to destroy data on a hard drive. I'm guessing this would do it.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
either that, or that data would be highly compressed.
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
Sounds pretty cool,
But it got me to thinking...
This thing uses Magnetic fields to form the metal,
But Copper and Aluminum are non-Ferrus Metals!
Could somebody who knows a little bit about metalurgy comment on this!
From the page: . A shrunken coin weighs exactly the same afterwards, and its density is also unchanged - it's merely the shape that's been altered.
Okay... the density and mass stay the same (This assumes gravity hasn't increased to keep weight the same for less mass). But the quarter has 'shrunk'. This implies less volume. Unless the quarter has grown thicker to compensate for the smaller diameter, how the hell can the coin's density not change?
Does it come with a crooked faced puppet screaming on about how it's from the best country on Earth
No, in this case it comes with an ignorant, puritan, intolerant and myopic jackbooted Consumo-Ped(TM). Our records show you have not paid your Corprate tithe this quarter - you are therefore unlicensed to hear our Puppet(TM) talk about how Canada has the highest standard of living in the world... but Ill remind you this time for free. Violations in future will be punishable by lashings from ignorant McArthy-ites.
One use of this metal forming machine was to compact planetary gear rings from powdered metal. Before sintering, the density at the inner surface was 6.76 g/cc. The density for this steel in a "fully solid" state was 6.77 g/cc. Compare this to 6.6 g/cc, about the best that traditional hydraulic press powdered metal forming forges could do. And it only took 40 milliseconds.
Wow.
There was so much force involved, we were constantly breaking coils, with very explosive effects. You could hear a clap of thunder in the other building across the street.
It's amazing how Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering can combine for some very frightening effects.
Oh, yeah, they also used to be a Star Wars research firm. They still have a working rail gun in the lab. :)
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
In a related research lab, they have been grafting adamantium onto human bones to make the person's skeleton super strong.
RE: And increasingly get your rights trampled on and your privacy invaded because the government has some pretty fucked up ideas of freedom.
That's RICH, considering that Canaduh has that big Big Brother database on every Canadian. "We dismantled that!" Yeah sure, this would of course be at the same time they got rid of the GST, right?
RE: Every country has their fuck ups, but I would honestly rather live in a country that's worse off economically because of some bonehead government than in a country whose governments' mission is leaning towards Big Brother under the pretense of security and order.
Canada has no free speech rights, no property rights, your right to self defense is being taken away as we speak, you're all sliding into eternal debt, and you are trying to tell me that America, which has always valued its Constitutional principles, is going to hell in a handbasket? Thanks for playing "let's boost Chretien". Schmuck.
RE: I'm not a 'yay Canada' type person,
Oh no, of course not.
RE: but every single time I hear some stupid Corporate or government move to further encroach on peoples' freedoms, you would not believe how glad I am that I live in Canada.
Where you don't even have the right to own your own computer, let alone a gun to defend yourself against your government?
RE: I'll trade money and economic success for freedom ANY day.
Well, when Canada gets the right to free speech (kiddie porn doesn't count), a decent economy, and respects the right to remain silent, the right to not be subjected to reverse-onus prosecution, etc. let me know, OK? Learn something, THEN post. Leave the Liberal propaganda at home.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
RE: Sorry, I think you're a little misinformed. The database you're referring to is simply social security current address.
WRONG. That was why the HDRC was given flack about it, and why they promised to scrap it.
RE:Hmmm... Let's see... what pile of bullshit do I flush first?
Ad hominem attacks don't make your points any better.
RE:SOOO many to choose from. No free speech? Last time I checked, anyone was allowed to gather for protest
Hm, unless you're protesting Suharto showing up. Then the PMO sends in riot squads. No punishments for those people anywhere: apparently the PMO can supercede the Charter. RE: Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of expression
Notwithstanding clause, Supreme Court "adjustments" to laws... Tried posting a sign in English in Quebec lately?
RE: Our debt is probably 1/100th the USA's debt. And this is the 3rd year in a row IIRC. So what the hell are you talking about?
America is predicted to have everything paid off within 20 years. Canada? About 1000.
RE:DMCA? The big oil companies and their lobbying.
What about either is unconstitutional?
RE: The total lack of representation or even thought given to groups of lesser influence or means. uhhuh.
Western Canada wants a word with you about total lack of representation.
RE:Oh, I guess the thing I'm typing this with is a figment of my imagination. How silly of me not to notice that. Gun? All you have to do is register.
Then tomorrow, they confiscate. They've already lied about it and been proven liars.
RE:Reverse-onus prosecution? I think you are a little misinformed my friend.
Bill C-68. Try reading it.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
They've figured out how to turn American money into Canadian money! Just shrink 40%, kill off 40% of its value.
Does it come with a crooked faced puppet screaming on about how it's from the best country on Earth?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
is the amount of detail that isn't lost in the process, it actually keeps the form of the object reasonably well..
How Jaded Are You?
I would like to know if the "work coil" always explodes. If it does then this effect may not be "magnetic" at all but merely compression from the work coil exploding. If so, the same effect could probably be displayed with a SMALL amount of castable/formable explosive (i.e. a round shaped charge) as long as you could detonate on at least two sides simultaneously. If the work coil doesn't explode, or if it is shown not to be an explosive compression effect, then it would be interesting to see this used on steel or aluminum bar stock and then have it dissected to see if the "grain" of the metal has aligned to any extent (i.e. it was forged). If it did, THAT would lead to some intersting manufacturing possibilities.
"Laws are like sausages, it is best not to see them being made" Otto Von Bismarck
Were it a gas or liquid, it would bounce back to its original density, i.e. Boyle's Law.
But since it retains that density as a solid I'm assuming the quarter isn't at its minimum volume, expanding some amount as the field collapses, to a sustainable volume for 1ATM/1G, assuming this is close to the most greatest density achievable. Repeat attempts would probably change the density very little. Soooo, like a compressed spring, would this quarter, given any amount of time (thousands, millions) in years eventually regain it's original density (under laboratory conditions of course :) ?
In any event, this is going on the list of toys I need from Santa Claus this year. Better get crackin on that list...
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This is old school tech. I mean, c'mon, haven't you seen "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"?
Speaking of that awful movie, does anyone remember the sequel, "Honey, I Blew Up the Kids"? Heh. I was driving by the local theatre a few years ago, when I saw a most unfortunate gaffe on their billboard. It seems they were showing the equally awful "3 Ninjas" at the same time, advertised on the line below, but they didn't have enough room to complete the title of HIBUTK... So the sign actually displayed the following:
I laughed so hard I almost wrecked the car
Yeah, Yeah... -1 offtopic... I know.
GATES: MOVE 'ALCHIN'.
I take drugs seriously.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Not only can it shrink quarters, but it changes the "United States of America" to "Liberty".
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
If you're gonna troll, at least try to have a better grasp on what your rambling about. Don't give bad examples when there are chemists lurking about.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Dale Travous, a professional artist in Seattle, was messing with Boeing Surplus discharge caps around 1990/1991. I told him about an old article in Rev. Phy. Inst. where the authors were crushing soupcans with a 1-turn copper coil. Dale came up with a device which he called... um... "the quartershrinker." He used it for several months to shrink pennies, then found that quarters were slightly more impressive, and the name "quartershrinker" was the one that stuck.
It was written up by Gary Hawkins in the old "Extraordinary Science" magazine published by the now-defunct Int'l Tesla Society. His technique was identical to the one used by Bert Hickman.
So is this a case of "100th monkey syndrome?" More likely the "quartershrinker" idea was spread by word of mouth.
Another venerable website for electrodynamic shennanigans:
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SCIENCE HOBBYIST amasci.com