Math Is Fun Forum

NullRoot

Member

Registered: 2007-11-19

Posts: 162

Invented By Men

This is the place to post all the really crazy inventions made by men. I have two to start us off:

1. The Lamb Water Gun Knife
Water Gun and Knife in the same sentence. It's a dead giveaway, huh?

Invented by F. Gilbert Lamb, this invention in it's simplest form is nothing more than a long tube. At one end, you have a lattice of razor sharp blades. At the other end, you have a high pressure water hose. What goes in the tube? Potatoes.

That's right. Potatoes. This invention is now the worldwide industry standard for convenience food manufacturers. First purportedly tested in the parking lot of his plant in Weston, Oregon, the Lamb Water Gun Knife fires what are basically raw french fries out at 117 feet per second. Absolute genius.

2. Pop Rocks
You remember pop rocks, don't you? Little crackly things that are supposedly lethal with Coca-Cola?

They basically take the ingredients (all of which are various forms of sugars) and melt them down in a sealed vat. This vat is then forcefully pumped full of carbon dioxide at a pressure of 600 pounds per square inch. As the mixture cools, the high pressure CO2 is trapped inside the sugary mix, which is then crushed into little pellets.

When you stick them in your mouth, the saliva melts the sugar, weakening the walls of the trapped bubbles until they can no longer contain the pressure of 60 atmospheres! The result is a fizzly, crackly party in your mouth. The person who first thought "Why don't we force really high pressure CO2 into liquid sugar?" was a chemist at General Foods, the legendary William A Mitchell. Also known for his role in the invention of Tang.

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Trillian: Five to one against and falling. Four to one against and falling… Three to one, two, one. Probability factor of one to one. We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.

Kargoneth

Member

Registered: 2007-08-11

Posts: 33

Re: Invented By Men

Ah yes... the water knife. They have many at one of the fry plants in a town by the city I live in.

Intriguing... I have often wondered what would happen if you froze super-carbonated water into ice cubes. I suppose the result would be similar to these pop rock things.

Question: Do these inventions have to have been successful, or can failed inventions also be included?

NullRoot

Member

Registered: 2007-11-19

Posts: 162

Re: Invented By Men

Failed inventions are perfectly acceptable. I just have an appreciation for insane people who get others to buy in to their insane inventions. Oddly enough, it's normally men.

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Trillian: Five to one against and falling. Four to one against and falling… Three to one, two, one. Probability factor of one to one. We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.

Monox D. I-Fly

Member

From: Indonesia

Registered: 2015-12-02

Posts: 2,000

Re: Invented By Men

You remember pop rocks, don't you? Little crackly things that are supposedly lethal with Coca-Cola?

Mentos?

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Actually I never watch Star Wars and not interested in it anyway, but I choose a Yoda card as my avatar in honor of our great friend bobbym who has passed away.
May his adventurous soul rest in peace at heaven.

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 48,384

Re: Invented By Men

You remember pop rocks, don't you? Little crackly things that are supposedly lethal with Coca-Cola?

Mentos?

A Diet Coke and Mentos eruption (also known as a soda geyser) is a reaction between the carbonated beverage Diet Coke and Mentos mints that causes the beverage to spray out of its container. The candies catalyze the release of gas from the beverage, which creates an eruption that pushes most of the liquid up and out of the bottle.

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.