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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.]
Josh Hinman
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
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 If the loan-created money is withdrawn as cash or transferred to another bank, then the bank's holdings are reduced, but another bank's are increased by the same amount.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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When can I get this for my battlebot?!?!
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.
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
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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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
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.
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
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.
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!)
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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