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New Shape Born From Rubber Bands
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Physicists playing with rubber bands have discovered a new shape. In an attempt to create a spring that replicates the light-bending properties of cuttlefish ink sacs, a team of researchers suspended two rubber strips of different lengths. Connecting the bottoms of the two strips to a cup of water, the shorter band stretched to the same length as the longer one. After gluing the two stretched strips together, the researchers gradually drained the water from the cup. As the bands retracted and twisted from the reduced strain, the researchers were shocked to see the formation of a hemihelix with multiple rainbow-shaped boundaries called perversions. The team hopes their work inspires nanodevices and molecules that twist and transform from flat strips into predetermined 3D shapes on demand."
There are several videos attached to the original paper, and all can be viewed without flash.
Back when I used corded handsets a lot one could strech them out far enough and then when they retracted you would get a very similar shape....
My telephone cord at work has been like this for years.
I see it in my Desk Phone Cord all the time.
Somehow I don't think a perversion is a new shape.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
looks like the same thing that i used to get in phone cords.
Looks like what happens when an old-school phone cord gets tangled.
From looking at the picture, it looks like what the telephone cord would eventually look like on the kitchen extension when I was a kid. (before everyone had cordless phones). Older people here might recall seeing mom get tangled up in the thing while gabbing away and cooking at the same time, she would eventually have to twirl around to extricate herself and hang up the phone.
No matter where you go, there you are.
My old phone cord.... never mind.
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So they have discovered liquorice?
Curly phone cords form these hemihelix 'perversions' all the time.. They drive me nuts and I obsess over working them out of the cord. So.. Thanks science! You can make a phone cord that will cause my head to explode from all the perversion.
This will be a little easier to view.
Not seeing anything groundbreaking off the top of my head...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
So, I was doing this myself when I spent hours and hours trying to be caller #3 to the radio station tangling up my parents phone cord? And there is an easier way to remove that perversion than unwinding the hole thing? Next somebody is going to tell me I was making graphene when I first used the big boy pottie.
No thanks.
But on closer inspection it looks more like something on redit's /mildlyInteresting.
People have started to rediscover things that were perfectly ordinary 20 years ago. If it is not mentioned anywhere on the Internet or you cannot find it because there is no word for it, then it becomes a new invention when stumbled upon.
I have just filed a patent for a sound storage device that consists of two spools. The sound is stored in direct form so that it can be sent to a sound emitting device without DAC. I call it Direct Sound(tm).
Maybe I'm missing something here too. Looks like a twisted up rubber band to me. Although I'm pretty sure I invented a new shape the first time I used monofilament fishing line.
Sure looks like the same shape squid tentacles make when you bread and deep fry them. Have these guys never had calamari? Or maybe just the crappy "rings only" stuff you get at most "trying to be more upscale" chain restaurants?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Windows Media Video 9 files without any identifying suffix in the downloadable archive. Good going.
Assholes.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
like a pervert? eww.. gonna take a shower now.
Bacon started this.
And underwear elastic furthered it.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
but then I took a phone cord to the knee. HURRDURR
So funny how every freaking comment is the same dumb joke.
Handily in time to contend for the 2014 Ig Nobel price.
Correlation does not imply causation.
A recent, simple experiment using elastomer strips reveals that hemihelices with multiple reversals of chirality can also occur, a richness not anticipated by existing analyses. Here, we show through analysis and experiments that the transition from a helical to a hemihelical shape, as well as the number of perversions, depends on the height to width ratio of the strip's cross-section. Our findings provides the basis for the deterministic manufacture of a variety of complex three-dimensional shapes from flat strips.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I invented that with the elastic on my underwear years ago, in fact I'm still wearing the same underwear as evidence of my invention!
Yep, looks like a phone cord to me. I don't see what's so 'new' about it. Are these Scientists trolling us ?
I want a job where I get paid to play with rubber bands and make new shapes.
literally ruins slinkys.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
So it's safe to say that the summary is botched, however, that does not mean that the article is not still interesting enough to be deserving. What we have is an unexpected outcome to an experiment. They created a known structure using a new method, where the method of creation may make the shape promising to engineering applications.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Well, they're no the first to TRY to name it.
I swear I remember doing this exact thing when I was a kid.
Hemihelix Perversion. That sounds so ... dirty.
My mind is a raging torrent of possible meanings. But I will spare you all.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Then you too have seen this shape.
Did anyone else get Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" as a related video?
I was getting shapes like that from rubber band powered balsa wood airplanes back in the 80's during both winding and unwinding. Regarding the unwinding, I used to love testing the thrust a few times to see if there was a magical way to wind it to get more airflow and for longer. I'm sure older people have witnessed similar many years prior. Nothing new here.
I've been twisting these for years. Just get a band, twist it a bit too tight to form a nice little set of loops and pull it open. You get the parts where it's too tight to form a nice loop but not tight enough to twist around.
Should have done the maths on it years ago and I'd have gotten myself a Slashdotted website.
That's got to be old news.
I believe I may have manually introduced a hemihelical perversion to my wife. At least, she acted surprised.
It was sliced pig rectum: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/484/doppelgangers?act=1
"all can be viewed without flash." — you just need Windows Media Player! Who writes this stuff?
They're gonna give it back .. when?
.. they invented it's math