Small Change, and Other Physics Fun

fishy jew writes "Ever want an easy way to make your 'small change' even smaller? Well, Bert Hickman has it - mix a home-brewed machine, 6.5 kiloJoules, and 100,000 Amps of current! On his website, he has descriptions and pictures of his many exploits with large quantities of electricity, notably including shrinking coins, building a Tesla coil, creating Lichtenberg figures (chaotic sculpture), and more! He has extensively outlined the equipment, procedure, and results for each of his experiments, and included many pretty pictures, too. Here are Google caches for when the site gets /.'ed: Main Page, Shrinking Coins, Tesla Coil, and Lichtenberg Figures."

Comments

Maybe he should

[Herkum01]

Have redirected some of that current into getting a more powerful network connection.

Shrinking bandwidth

[carcosa30]

Apparently the slashdot effect is a kind of physics fun he didn't account for...

Re:Shrinking bandwidth

[Alien54]

Apparently the slashdot effect is a kind of physics fun he didn't account for...

With any luck, he'll be out partying tonight, getting smashed. Then he comes home completely toasted, and has to rebuild the server from the pile of smoke he finds in his server closet.

Hell is working on MS stuff drunk and plasted. You'll never know what will happen [read the comics through to the end]

The server...

[Honig the Apothecary]

is shrinking right now before you eyes with the application of millions of /.ers.

If it gets enough hits, will it become small enough to fit in a blade system?

Re:I own one of these coins... very cool

[ThomasFlip]

They should name these coins after George Bushes fiscal advisors.

Shrinking the national debt...

[SmackCrackandPot]

With some slight modifications, this technique could be used to shrink the national debt.

Re:Shrinking the national debt...

[eclectro]

With some slight modifications, this technique could be used to shrink the national debt.

Only if you electrocute the politicians currently in office.

anti-spam

[mnewton32]

Please Contact Me me to discuss YOUR custom shrinking needs!

Ah, now this is a welcome relief from all those spammers who seem to think I always need to make things bigger!

Re:I own one of these coins... very cool

[vistic]

"The coin is truly amazing to look at and a hit at parties."

What kind of party are those?

The "news for nerds treatment"

[Nick Driver]

I'm happy to see the site finally get the news for nerds treatment it deserves

Yeah! That's even got a catchy ring to it... From now on, when we want to bring a site to its knees, we'll give it the news for nerds treatment. :-)

Re:Hmm..

[onemorehour]

Great cynicism, but that's not a very profitable venture. How many shrunken coins do you have to sell in order to replace your smoldering heap of a web server?

Re:New experiment...

[foo1752]

Wonder if he can do the opposite with my...uhum...private parts?

Interesting idea... So, the article claims that it takes 100 kiloamps of current to shrink a coin. So, let's just assume that the process is reversible and by finding a way to enlarge a small coin, you would actually be generating large amounts of current, okay?

Now, let's throw your genitals into the mix. We'll take your small, unused organ and hook it up to the power grid. Then, we'll order some penis enlargement pills and feed them to you in mass quantities. Step 3: profit from selling the energy back to the power company!

Re:Hmm..

[aardvarkjoe]

Surprisingly few seeing that, contrary to popular slashdot belief, web servers don't actually burn.

Oh, yeah? Then what's this?