Diary (December 23, 2020)

Online diary of Karl Jones for Wednesday December 23, 2020.

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Diary

Explosive forming of a metal sphere

I was intrigued by this process some time ago, when I read an article on artist Evelyn Rosenberg. Found a book in the campus library on the technique that outlined how it was used to make large low-run forms like fuel-tank ends for rockets.Tooling was a fraction of that it would take to make a steel die, as it could be made out of epoxy-coated concrete. (And the process can be used to make objects that would be impossible due to their size and the capacity of existing presses.) The interior is filled with water (Incompressible) to make the transfer of the shock safe® and more efficient. There were some great examples of how a seamless tube was formed into a complex shape by placing it between the mold halves with a strand of primacord strung end-to-end.

• Comment @ Boing Boing
• Copper Catalyst: Evelyn Rosenberg's Explosive Art of Detonography @ copper.org

SEC files against Ripple

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Tuesday it has filed an action against Ripple, the blockchain payments company associated with the cryptocurrency XRP, charging it with conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering.

• SEC charges blockchain payments firm Ripple with conducting unregistered securities offering @ Boing Boing

How queer is our universe?

Quote Investigator: The earliest match in this family of expressions known to QI was written by J. B. S. Haldane in an essay titled “Possible Worlds” published within a 1927 collection.

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.

During the ensuing decades the phrasing and vocabulary of the statement have been altered to yield many variants. In addition, the attribution has shifted. Based on current evidence the ascriptions to Arthur Eddington and Werner Heisenberg. are unsupported.

• [1] @ Quote Investigator

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles