Tweakie.CNC - Making stuff - Routing and Profile cutting

Some things which I find intriguing.

Quantum Entanglement.

In the wonderful world of quantum mechanics and within the sub-domain of particle physics there lies the mystery of Entanglement. Two (or more) particles can become entangled such that no matter how far apart they become (within the universe) any interference with one has an instantaneous effect upon the other.

To date experiments with photons (the building blocks of light) being split into entangled pairs have been carried out over relatively short distances (around 10 kilometres, with fibre optics) but it has proved that this can be an extremely secure (if not the most secure known method yet devised) type of encrypted communications.

The Hadron Collider at Cern is expected to provide a lot of information about the behaviour of the very small, which do not always obey the laws of physics as we know them, and this may well lead to a greater understanding of the entanglement phenomenon.

Pure speculation but natural occurrences of entanglement could mean that events triggered in one part of the universe would have a direct bearing on the events occurring in another part.

Further reading -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

The HUM.

The HUM is a worldwide phenomenon, a mystery, which as yet has no proven explanation. Curiously some people perceive or hear it whilst others, in exactly the same location, do not. It is certainly more predominant in certain areas than others but it is always the same. It has been well documented, over the years, in the press, books, government and local authority reports and on TV. The internet itself has many pages devoted to its following.

If it is described as a sound then it is like the drone of a propeller driven aircraft at a distance which never gets any closer or more distant. It has also been described as the sound of a distant diesel generator labouring under load or the sound of a semi idling a block away. The frequency of the sound appears to be centred around 56 Hertz but it is a complex waveform and far from being just a simple sine wave.

So that we can listen to just what the HUM sounds like I have created an electronically generated approximation and this can be downloaded or played from here Hum.wav. To hear the sound correctly, switch on your speakers and turn the volume fully down then raise the volume level until the sound can just be perceived.

Weird ?, well maybe. As with all mysteries it has attracted its fair share of unusual explanations, some from (to say the least) extremely unusual people.

One thing of which I am certain is that, sooner or later, the emerging Wind Farms are going to get all the blame for this.

Further reading -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

Modular Arithmetic.

Have you ever wondered just how credit card numbers are created (perhaps not) well they are not sequential and they are certainly not random numbers. It appears that the major credit card companies use a card validation algorithm equating to a (mod 10) number of zero and the card number must conform with this formulae.

Therefore to validate a genuine credit card number – missing the right hand (check) digit, double every other number from right to left with the resultant two digits of numbers greater than 4 being added together. Then add together all the calculated numbers plus all the numbers that were skipped then (mod 10) the result. If the answer is not 0 then the card is not genuine.

As an example, my Credit Card Number could be 5299 6036 3082 1106.

Missing the right hand digit, double every other number from right to left, when the resultant is a two digit number add these two digits together.

0 * 2 = 0

1 * 2 = 2

8 * 2 = (16) adding the two digits 1 + 6 = 7

3 * 2 = 6

6 * 2 = (12) adding the two digits 1 + 2 = 3

9 * 2 = (18) adding the two digits 1 + 8 = 9

5 * 2 = (10) adding the two digits 1 + 0 = 1

Now add the resultant of the calculations. 0 + 2 + 7 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 9 + 1 = 34

Now add together the numbers that were skipped. 6 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 2 = 26

Add these results and (mod 10) the answer. 34 + 26 = 60 and 60 (mod 10) = 0 therefore this card number is a valid number.

Some software companies charge a lot of money for a simple program to perform this calculation yet for anyone who has reasonable powers of mental arithmetic, it is not too difficult to perform this entire calculation in your head and If I can do it I am sure that you can.

It is perhaps interesting to mention that this calculation is not dissimilar to the mental arithmetic algorithm of multiplying large numbers by 12 as described in

his book ‘The Trachtenberg speed system of basic mathematics’.

CNC is only limited by our imagination.

Tweakie.CNC

BACK

HOME