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I find the geometry of things like this fascinating. We typically think in such simple shapes. I feel like my brain can do triangle, rectangle and maybe hexagon
by themagician 3y ago
I find the geometry of things like this fascinating. We typically think in such simple shapes. I feel like my brain can do triangle, rectangle and maybe hexagons and that's about it. I remember when I finally understood radians enough to really understand circles and waveforms—I felt so enlightened. Like I actually remember the moment when it clicked. For years I was just "doing the work" without actually understanding what I was doing, but once I was able to understand it… it's like something changed in my brain.
I want to be able to think in mobius, but my brain is currently like, "No thanks."
- sdwr 3y agoI'll argue that "thinking in mobius" is simpler than thinking in circles, and more true to life than thinking in basic shapes. The core concepts in mobius-land are local curvature and global cumulative field.
- stjohnswarts 3y agoSorry those just aren't the way the average joe on the street thinks about things.
- willis936 3y agoThey're actually quite simple geometries in the right (unintuitive and warped) coordinate system.
- eternityforest 3y agoDoing CAD design is really interesting. A lot of stuff is just 2.5D, extrusions of 2D sketches sitting on other 2D sketches. Then you accidentally make something truly 3D by intersecting things and realize you have no idea what you're looking at, couldn't imagine it if you closed your eyes, couldn't replicate it if you had a picture of the result and didn't know the 2D inputs that made it... and then you realize there are probably people out there who can see that entire design in their head. To me it's like unicycling on a tightrope or skateboarding or realistic oil painting or playing piano well. I have no real concept or reference point for what that experience must be like.
- p1mrx 3y agoJust drawing a 3D slanted plane to match the front of my printer made my head hurt: https://www.printables.com/model/526981-ender-3-s1-quad-z-brace-mod#preview:file-OZyu6 https://www.printables.com/model/526981-ender-3-s1-quad-z-br...
- waldothedog 3y agoInteresting. With a very strong reference for the experience of skateboarding, reading your sentence made me think about how hard it is to explain! I suppose when it’s going well, it feels like body/mind flow, when it’s going poorly it feels like physics :)
- eternityforest 3y agoThat kind of thing is super amazing! I've secretly suspected for a while that people who are able to skateboard or do similar things must live in 4 or 5 dimensions. I can't figure out any kind of way someone could do that with anything resembling what I understand "thought" to be like, so I assume you must be able to process entire sequences and their alternate possibilities simultaneously?
- nomel 3y agoComing from 3d sculpting to CAD was...eye opening. It really makes you realize how much of design constrained by the CAD tools, which are mostly constrained by manufacturability. If true 3d printing* ever gets cheap, it'll be interesting to see how much form will be able follow function, rather than manufacturing cost. * true 3d, as in overhang are allowed. Something like a cheap FDM is more 2.5d, since overhangs aren't allowed.
- dekhn 3y agoI can't really think in (visualize) 3d shapes, so I depend a lot on 3D geometry programs when I design things like for my microscope. A fair number of people I've talked to can visualize complex shapes in their head, rotate them around, do interference checking, etc.
- wizzwizz4 3y agoAphantasia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
- dylan604 3y agoWhat about those tests where they say to fold a piece of paper X number of times, and then punch holes in specific places. You then have to pick the image of what the paper would look like unfolded. Do these types of visualizations give you the same issue? I have known several people that just could not visualize these tests, and I'm curious if these are related.
- nomel 3y agoApparently this is called the "Paper folding test": http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/brace/resources/Paper%20Folding%20Test%20Vz-2-BRACE%20Version%2007.pdf http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/brace/resources/Paper%20Folding%20...
- KyleBerezin 3y agoYea they are kinda confusing, especially when you get into the 3D ones like klien bottles and roman surfaces. I also recently learned that if you make a mobius shaped transmission line (like a ladder line) and you send a pulse down it, that pulse will continue looping until it dissipates (or forever if it is a superconductor). https://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/21001-printed-resonators-mbius-strip-theory-and-applications https://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/21001-printed-reso... I have no idea if there are any advantages over a simple planar circular loop though.
- colordrops 3y agoAre real life superconductors ideal, i.e. they truly would store a charge forever (at least until the material disintegrated)? Or is there some sort of loss, albeit much less than typical resistance?
- klodolph 3y ago1. Something “in a superconducting state” has zero resistance, but the transition to superconducting states is not sudden, and there are various things which disrupt that state like magnetic fields. 2. Alternating currents will dissipate even with zero resistance, because the circuit will emit EM waves.
- KyleBerezin 3y agoLadder lines are balanced transmission lines, so they do not emit EM radiation.
- klodolph 3y agoWouldn’t that require kind of an idealized transmission line, not just a superconducting one?
- KyleBerezin 3y agoYes. I don't think super conduncting ressonators of any design are perfect.
- dylan604 3y ago>I want to be able to think in mobius, but my brain is currently like, "No thanks." I spent a lot time staring at Escher images as a teen, so I think my brain says "yes please". I have no idea what to do with any of it, so it's not like it does me any good.
- hobs 3y agoJust play Asteroids, congrats, add a twist between certain edges (which would manifest as a flip) and you now are in the mobius.