Thursday, January 18, 2007

Circle of Carts

Look at this :-) I'd bet it was taken in Santa Barbara.


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12 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:05 PM, January 18, 2007

    Fantastic!! :D

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  2. Sabine Hossenfelder12:10 PM, January 18, 2007

    Hi fh,

    yeah, nice idea, eh? I've had a closer look at this guy's website and it says the photo was indeed taken in Santa Barbara. Well, actually it was taken in Goleta, but thats about the same (confusingly, UC Santa Barbara is not in Santa Barbara, but in Goleta). Though I have to say, I'm not particularly impressed by his works. The only one I like is the one with the zebra, but that I think I've seen elsewhere before (probably an ad), not exactly the same but very similar.

    Best,

    B.

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  3. Rae Ann3:59 PM, January 18, 2007

    LOL, if one didn't know better one might think that was the suburban equivalent to crop circles. ;-)

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  4. Anonymous6:52 PM, January 18, 2007

    The thought the picture arises in me is that it is much harder to establish a symmetry than to break it! The SSB mechanism is really a natural outcome of Nature (the bitch, not the magazine)'s simple laws...

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  5. Sabine Hossenfelder6:58 PM, January 18, 2007

    it is much harder to establish a symmetry than to break it!

    depends on the symmetry. homogeneity is also kind of a symmetry, no? take flour, pour sugar over it, some eggs, cacao. then take a mixer and you easily create perfect symmetry.

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  6. Luboš Motl7:21 PM, January 18, 2007

    Very funny cart knot. It would be even more funny if it had a non-zero self-linking number which you could also create. I vaguely remember this point in Goleta, having spent 6 months there.

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  7. Anonymous7:23 PM, January 18, 2007

    actually it was taken in Goleta, but thats about the same (confusingly, UC Santa Barbara is not in Santa Barbara, but in Goleta).

    one could also say there isn't much to Goleta besides UCSB

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  8. QUASAR92:52 AM, January 19, 2007

    Hi Bee, shopping trolleys designed to be stacked neatly one into another, create a 'perfect' circle.

    I wonder if the ability of trolleys neatly stacked (like links) into a circle was included in theoriginal 'design' or is just a random consequence of the design

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  9. Sabine Hossenfelder8:59 AM, January 19, 2007

    Hi Quasar,

    I doubt that the trolleys were designed to be put in a circle, but rather in a row. It makes me wonder if there's a natural curvature for the circle of carts. Putting them together this way does probably not work with any radius. Best,

    B.

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  10. QUASAR95:30 PM, January 19, 2007

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  11. QUASAR95:31 PM, January 19, 2007

    Hi Bee,
    I know the trolleys were designed to be stacked in a (straight) row rather than a circle.
    But clearly for them to be able to form a perfect circle (within certain parameters and radii) must be inherent (even if not conscious or deliberate) in the design - or could be dismissed as simply random coincidence.

    One could have probably easily worked out mathematically how many trolleys it would take for the curvature to form a circle - but I think it is so much more elegant to 'see' it

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  12. Anonymous7:42 AM, January 23, 2007

    Hi Bee! Please don't tell me this is a new spin on crop circles! Best, Cynthia

    ReplyDelete

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