Technology

Plotting the Sun’s Path

sun pathHere’s a cool article from the Wolfram Alpha Blog about using WolframAlpha to plot the sun’s path, as seen from various locations:

http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/09/22/following-the-suns-unique-path/

You can also alter the date, which means you can look at historical data or projected future data.

Unfortunately, when I tried the command “sunpath north pole” (employing the classic mathematical strategy consider extreme cases), WolframAlpha gave me the sun path for North Pole, Alaska, a very oddly named place as it is nowhere near the actual North Pole.

By patrick honner, ago

New Digits of Pi

piA computer scientist at Yahoo has used “cloud computing” to find the most distant digits yet of pi’s decimal expansion.

This new approach to networking machines and processors, allowing them to act as one super-computer rather than, say, 100 individuals, allowed this record-setting calculation to be in 23 days when, under normal circumstances, it would have taken nearly 500 years.

Apparently a similar approach at Google resulted in verifying that every configuration of the Rubik’s cube can be solved in 20 moves or less.

By patrick honner, ago

Meet the Egg-Bot

egg-botThis is pretty awesome:  an assemble-yourself perhipheral that allows you to draw on spherical/ellipsoidal/other objects:  the egg-bot!

http://egg-bot.com/

Plug it in to your USB port, render your drawing in a freeware illustration program, and voila!  And it’s open-source:  both hardware and software.

There are so many interesting things that could be done with the egg-bot:  sketching grid lines on ellipsoids to illustrate parametric surfaces, investigating how projection affects map-making, graphing closed-curves on golf balls, or maybe just creating the greatest Easter Eggs in human history.

By patrick honner, ago

3-D Printing

3d PrinterThe NYT has an interesting article about the increased use of 3D printers in commercial applications.  Nowadays, companies are using the technology to build custom furniture, low-cost prosthetic limbs, and even housing components.

Basically, the geometry of the object is laid-out in software (like Autodesk), and the “printer” then translates the design into reality by extruding layers of hot plastic, one after another, building the object up essentially by printing one cross section at a time.

It seems that the process is becoming more commonplace and less expensive, opening the door for a wider array of commercial uses.  I’ve seen students using this technology, and it is a pretty remarkable advance.  I believe you can even have a custom-designed plastic guitar built! 

By patrick honner, ago

Real-Life Transformers

folding robotsThis is an absolutely mind-blowing idea:  robotic “paper” that can fold itself into an arbitrary three dimensional object.  Be sure to watch the short video accompanying the article.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/programmable-matter-0805.html

Tying (or folding?) all of the physics and engineering together here is the mathematics of origami.  How can you fold a square sheet into a boat?  A plane?  A tetrahedron?  A super-intelligent robotic giraffe?

By patrick honner, ago
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