Prince Rupert's Drop vs Molten Glass [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
In this case I groaned a bit when I saw the title (“another Rupert’s Drop video?”), but it was fascinating to watch that team working together, and learn a bit about the process of glass blowing. I found the result a little underwhelming to be honest - at least in its attempt to capture the violence of a Rupert’s Drop exploding - though it was still a cool piece of glass. But the journey to get there kept me captivated the whole way through.
But in general I think Destin's latest videos have been a bit "trying too hard" and everything is "genius" etc
It's all "Prince Rupert's drop" or "Non-newtonian fluid" (and Oobleck is the only one they know about) or "Air cannon" or "shooting slow motion". It's the same topics going in a circle.
(But do watch the coast guard videos if you want to know how to whistle)
How do you measure this? How much ketchup do you need?
The initial approach was a large cylinder holding the ketchup with the bottom clear - and then a mirror set up under that. It also was initially done with a human with a stop watch and they needed enough ketchup so that the difference would be noticeable and within the error of human reactions.
It takes a lot of ketchup to fill up a 2 meter by 20 cm cylinder. Can't make it too narrow because the edges change it.
The grad students bought all the ketchup at the local big grocery store and raised a few eyebrows at the checkout.
After proving that it worked they were able to make a clear polymer fluid that had the same properties (though was more expensive than ketchup) so that they were able to see it from the side and provide better timings... and not have to worry about spoilage... still, the grad students with 16 gallons of ketchup was something to remember.
They did a bratwurst cookout with the unused leftovers.
The Mythbusters did a pair of videos for Corning eight years ago (and yes, they have the feel of infomercials - it isn't subtle at all... they're still neat):
The Glass Age, Part 1: Flexible, Bendable Glass - https://youtu.be/12OSBJwogFc
The Glass Age, Part 2: Strong, Durable Glass - https://youtu.be/13B5K_lAabw
Veritasium videos are good, Likely very high budget, But he prefers to build a narrative around himself - explaining things and his questions to subject matter experts are not as interesting as Destin.
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The purple glasses they wear are didymium. Photographers use a less intense version of that material as a "red enhancer filter." The spectra of the glasses ( https://www.colby.edu/chemistry/CH332/laboratory/didym-spec.... ) have a very low transmission from 572 nm to 585 nm. That's a yellowish color. The sodium vapor lights (those yellow street lights) are 589 nm. For photography, if you block the yellow out of a muddy brownish-red you get a more vibrant red. For glass blowers, the yellow flame around the glass is the sodium in the material ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_test - look at the sodium line). By blocking that yellow light, a glass blower is able to more clearly see through the flame to glass.
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For people who are interested an intersection of STEM and art... there is a demand for scientific glassblowers. ( https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/10/21172370/scientific-glass... - the woman in the article is https://www.phoenixmag.com/2017/10/01/christine-roeger/ who is a third generation glass blower - my father learned to fix a few items in the chemistry lab from her grandfather).
> She’s one of about 650 scientific glassblowers in the U.S., one of only a dozen or so women in the field, and one of even fewer third-generation scientific glassblowers. Running Arizona State University’s Glassblowing Facility as a one-woman operation, she’s carrying on a long but unheralded tradition that goes back to the makers of Galileo’s thermometer and Thomas Edison’s light bulb.
I am quite sure I saw #01 at $10k earlier today and it's now higher, so I suspect he found out he initially misjudged what Destin's advice of "priced not to sell" would need to mean.
https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/1980-ford-escort-rec0351...
Even the boring models command ridiculous values now: https://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/ford/escort/351743
For £6750 you can have one in really bad condition and with the steering wheel on the wrong side: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234972695631
Model T's USED to be destined for junkyards.
The few that escaped that fate are now collectibles.
The Yugo used to be what your parents bought for you (paying just a little bit more than the 286 laptop they also got for you) so that you could have something to drive when you went off to college.
The vast majority ended up in junkyards.
Now they are becoming collectible: https://carsandbids.com/auctions/Km2odWYp/1988-yugo-gv
My first car was a Karman Ghia that I paid $500 for in the 90s. It was seen as junk. The floor pans were rusting out and it would have cost way more than it was worth for the owner to fix it up so rain didn't spray into the cabin from underneath while driving. Looking at the prices they go for now I highly regret driving it until it thew a rod and then junking it.
Ford Escorts will be the same one day.
Still wouldn’t be too surprised though if someone bought it.
Or you could spend the same amount to own a lump of pretty glass that appeared in a YouTube video. Which apparently makes it special for some reason.
At first, I thought this was distracting, now I totally see the value for HN (and me). I have to find a way to dive deeper in this topic of mindset around failure.
It's still a little disappointing that the molten glass doesn't really capture the full moment of the explosion as it both dampens the movement of the fragments and the heat melts them so the drop slightly reforms.
My guess is that a suitable concentration of epoxy that's neither too runny or too viscous would probably work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24q80ReMyq0
https://orbixhotglass.com/product-category/prince-ruperts-dr...
Least expensive: 500 USD
Most expensive: 100,000 USD
Most of them are below 3,500 USD, but damn, pretty high prices for something like that, although I guess it makes sense considering how long time they probably spent on making them and coming up with the process.
Ebay Etsy Amazon also have stores with them.
But kinda stuck what to do with them / check they are real.
I feel like they are too dangerous as presents for young kids to keep. Hit the tail and get glass in the eye. It'd be cool if they came in a cage for kids.
But not sure what to do other then explode them?
Everyone shoots them or has a hydraulic press - https://www.tiktok.com/search?q=Prince%20Rupert%27s%20Drop
You can look at them under crossed polarizers.
They're all about "YouTube Shorts" now, of course that will change soon enough.
YouTube, at its best, are the videos where someone genuinely interested in a topic can show you why it’s interesting and hold your attention, allowing the content to dictate the length. CGP Grey probably being the most perfect prototypical example of this. Or it could come in the form of a Richard Feynman lecture, with absolutely no production value needed beyond reasonably intelligible audio.
This is Tom Scott for me. His videos tend to range around the 5- to 10-minute mark, but are occasionally far far longer. And yet every one of them is exactly the length it should be.
You could just read scientific papers if you're looking to condense knowledge transfer per time.
Almost everyone that claims that is wrong...
I prefer 15-45min videos, I hate both the Trend to 3-4hr "streams" and the "we gotta beat tiktok" vertical video shorts...
//sidenote... Bring back the 00's where people were shamed for posting vertical video....
I guess there's room for a happy middle ground between traditional TikTok and modern long-form YouTube.
Honestly a long form video essay on youtube has gotten to the point, by most talented creators, that it is basically just a high quality book.
Are you thinking that it's wrong / evil for a country to maintain an effective military?