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Small Change, and Other Physics Fun

Posted by michael on from the physics-is-phun dept.

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."

6 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I own one of these coins... very cool by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    That's one way to be a hit at a party. The other way is to bring good drugs. They're both cool.

    -B

  2. Re:Shrinking bandwidth by Pumpernickle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Cheaper, too. Besides, you wouldn't believe the figures the cable for his connection starts making when he gets linked to from /. ^^

  3. Re:Is this legit? by Ironsides · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Link on the RFID Cash Original: http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode. html Sequel: http://www.prisonplanet.com/180304_RFID_article.ht ml

    --
    Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
  4. Re:Google Cache? by general_re · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    There is no real distinction between the slashdot effect and a DDOS

    Other than the critical distinction of "intent", of course. Suing someone for things that fall under the heading of "shit happens" rarely leads anywhere useful.

    --
    ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
  5. Re: Political Tangents by zedmelon · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    To continue in this direction, I recently watched (History Channel, I'm pretty sure) a blurb that stated Carter (forever marked by millions for the Olympics, hostages, etc) actually did nearly all the negotiating--personally, I seem to recall--to get the hostages released, but since it didn't actually happen until Reagan took office, Reagan got the credit.

    "...but things don't become noticable until Guy B is in office, and gets blamed..."

    I don't know how true that is, but I'm willing to bet it's a lot more than most of us realize.

    [further]I was pleased when Reagan was elected because I didn't like Carter, based solely on the anger I felt when he beat Ford in the '76 election. Ignorant? Yes, but I was five, so neener neener.[/tangent]

    --
    Mom says my .sig can beat up your .sig.
  6. The Slashdot Effect by GDaddy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    So, I'm undecided, is it morally wrong to submit a small website for a slashdot story, knowing full well that that site is going to get shutdown inside of 24 hours?

    It seems to me a more responsible article would be about the concept of coin shrinking in general, and perhaps only link to the google search results.

    As it stands, this article did nothing but direct the slashdot readers' attention to the concept, and then demonstrate that some poor guy's page is unavailable, before going on to show us a googled list of sites.