CompuServe Thread

#Jiggle, jiggle…

6 messages in this thread
#166290From: SyndesisFeb 6, 1995 9:42 AM
What, you don't own several seismographs tuned to various frequencies? 🙂 A few ideas come to mind: waht was the outdoor wind speed when it started to rock? Is there a floor above this room? Do you know how the walls were fastened to the concrete slab? (Over time, wood might shrink or bolts might loosen.) How cold was it outside? Can you move the trophy to another place, return it, and the effect continues? Can you rock the trophy by hand at various rates to reproduce the effect? I've always maintained that people who see ghosts believed in ghosts before they ever saw a ghost. On the other hand, I've witnessed a few events in my life that tested my beliefs. I attribute them to either thermal or vibrational effects. One, I was sitting in a booth at a bar. My beer bottle was in front of me on the table. I put both hands down on the seat and scooted to the right and my beer bottle followed me, moving about six-eight inches down the table. I had witnesses, and we weren't drunk. 🙂 Another, an ordinary drinking glass was sitting on the counter in another room suddenly exploded, shattering into tiny 1/2 inch pieces, perhaps an hour after it had been washed. Another, a bowl of chili jumped about two inches off the table when I set it down and sat in front of it. In this case, it was one of those layered, Thermos-like bowls, so there was plenty of potential for thermal stress and rapid release.
#166321From: Ben WilliamsFeb 6, 1995 3:59 PM
John, > A few ideas come to mind: waht was the outdoor wind speed when it started to rock? Zero, according to my heath weather station. > Is there a floor above this room? Yes. > Do you know how the walls were fastened to the concrete slab? > (Over time, wood might shrink or bolts might loosen.) The walls of the room where the trophy is sitting are concrete and are an integral part of the slab. > How cold was it outside? I don't remember. Not too cold, 20-40 degrees. I didn't make a note of that because I didn't think it was relevant. > Can you move the trophy to another place, return it, and the effect continues? I've not moved it – don't plan to for a while – the position may be critical. So I dunno. > Can you rock the trophy by hand at various rates to reproduce the effect? Yes. > I've always maintained that people who see ghosts believed in ghosts before > they ever saw a ghost. I agree – I was kidding. > On the other hand, I've witnessed a few events in my life that tested my beliefs. > I attribute them to either thermal or vibrational effects. One, I was sitting in a booth > at a bar. My beer bottle was in front of me on the table. I put both hands down on > the seat and scooted to the right and my beer bottle followed me, moving about > six-eight inches down the table. I had witnesses, and we weren't drunk. 🙂 Very intriguing. never saw anything like this, myself. > Another, an ordinary drinking glass was sitting on the counter in another room suddenly > exploded, shattering into tiny 1/2 inch pieces, perhaps an hour after it had been washed. That's actually not that uncommon, and I've experienced similar events. > Another, a bowl of chili jumped about two inches off the table when I set it down > and sat in front of it. In this case, it was one of those layered, Thermos-like bowls, > so there was plenty of potential for thermal stress and rapid release. Just too much jalpeno in there, that's all. 🙂 Ben
#166475From: SyndesisFeb 7, 1995 9:24 AM
With all the other gizmos you've made, I'da thought you would have made a seismograph from a 6809 and three inches of baling wire. 🙂 Could there have been someone walking across the room upstairs? Was it morning when the slab wall might be warming, or evening when it might be cooling?
#166601From: Ben WilliamsFeb 8, 1995 12:45 AM
John, > With all the other gizmos you've made, I'da thought you would have made a seismograph > from a 6809 and three inches of baling wire. 🙂 Could there have been someone walking > across the room upstairs? Was it morning when the slab wall might be warming, or evening > when it might be cooling? Funny you should mention that. I've got a light shining on it, and a stick of photo-sensitive cells along the edge of the shadow, where it moves when it's pushed – using a TTL encoder tree to read 'em in on a breadboard, and a 6809 send them along in serial form. Crude, but it catches the movements as gross as I saw the other day very well, 64 photocells in a two inch arc (which is magnified by the shadow). I've been running a logging task (pretty trivial, really) since about 2am last night on the 4000 (which is also running SSTV and the network… 🙂 I graph the results using Analyze. Nothing so far since last nite, other than tiny movements. I'm watching it now. 🙂 Ben
#166665From: SyndesisFeb 8, 1995 10:36 AM
Obviously, this setup won't detect and measure the more exciting movements, like when it levitates off the shelf and floats across the room while you aren't looking. 🙂 Did you try bounding across the room on the floor above?
#166714From: Ben WilliamsFeb 8, 1995 4:54 PM
yeah… in fact I've done quite a few things to try and get it going. So far, no success. Ben