Interesting Wikipedia articles?

[northwest monkey]

E24man said:

All good guesses and it seems the boffins who wrote the article don't know for sure but as far as I can remember (it was the thick end of 30 years ago when I was a baby apprentice) it certainly feels like you're breaking a vacuum when you part them. If you just place them together there is no sensation of magnetism and there is no chance they will stick together if you push them against each other. But slide them together (as per the wringing instructions) and they hold together, and depending on the quality of the finish the harder they are to part with a direct pull perpendicular to the 'joined' surfaces.

You can get a similar effect with less smooth surfaces with a small amount of oil but the test for the apprentice pieces was for them to join without any lubricant at all. I think I gave all my apprentice pieces to my mum who forgot my advice to keep them oiled and they reverted to rusty lumps of mild steel.

My late Granddad was an engineer & he'd made a set of these when he was an apprentice. I remember as a kid being fascinated by them & how you could slide them apart but not pull them apart. Unfortunately, when he passed away, his workshed was emptied before I knew anything about it & they were thrown away. I saved some bits, but not his blocks sadly.

Edited by northwest monkey on Sunday 8th February 22:48

[northwest monkey]

Currently watching a BBC4 documentary about this. Some terrible stories of attempted ascents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiger#Nordwand

[northwest monkey]

This one may have been posted, but it's interesting enough to be posted again:

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

[simoid]

Leave tent due to thunderstorm/hearing thunder/explosions, then killed by a combination of being blown up by military and poisoned by the radioactive metal about? That's a mind boggler

[The Don of Croy]

Stephen Glass - American journalist who made up stories published in 'leading magazines and periodicals' in the 1990's before getting found out...but went on to have a film dedicated to his exploits, then wrote a book based upon more of the same...

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

- surprisingly refused a licence to become a lawyer in 2015 (why ever would that be?).

[Project C]

The Don of Croy said:

Stephen Glass - American journalist who made up stories published in 'leading magazines and periodicals' in the 1990's before getting found out...but went on to have a film dedicated to his exploits, then wrote a book based upon more of the same...

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

- surprisingly refused a licence to become a lawyer in 2015 (why ever would that be?).

And carrying on the great US journalistic tradition: -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Inaccu...

[legless]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_experi...

(suspected hoax) account of the unintended effects of a US Navy experiment to render ships invisible.

[ZOLLAR]

legless said:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_experi...

(suspected hoax) account of the unintended effects of a US Navy experiment to render ships invisible.

"suspected"



I think actualy Hoax is correct

[Potatoes]

Project C said:

And carrying on the great US journalistic tradition: -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Williams#Inaccu...

I'm slightly in love with that dude's daughter (Allison)

[Project C]

I had a chemistry kit as a kid for Christmas once - in 1950 I could have a atomic kit with radioactive sources to study!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_...

[SpeckledJim]

simoid said:

Benni said:

If these blocks are really flat down to microscopic level would molecular adhesion have that effect ?

When two become one...

/spicegirls

/splicegirls

[omgus]

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

70 years today.

[Brother D]

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

Mental.

[Funkycoldribena]

Brother D said:

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

Mental.

I really thought that was going to be about something different....

[omgus]

Funkycoldribena said:

Brother D said:

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

Mental.

I really thought that was going to be about something different....

Not just me then.

[torqueofthedevil]

Why is that mental? Seems like a changing a wheel on a large scale - a fairly sensible solution to a problem that would be most people's first idea of how to overcome the issue?!?!?

Anyway let's get some more pages on here - love a good one

[Stedman]

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

[Brother D]

torqueofthedevil said:

Why is that mental? Seems like a changing a wheel on a large scale - a fairly sensible solution to a problem that would be most people's first idea of how to overcome the issue?!?!?

Anyway let's get some more pages on here - love a good one

Trains are known to be pretty heavy, I just assumed you got off one train and simply walked over to a completely different new train if the gauge was different. - not lift the trains and swap over many tons of wheel sets! (They apparently do variable bogies where the wheels can slide in and out in some parts of the world, but still I've never seen it and didn't know it happened certainly, not as a regular/daily basis for some routes).

Anyway back on track I'd quite like to go see some of these, some look amazing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwell

Also always wanted to know what was in this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba there's a video of young guy walking round it with his phone - doesn't seem very, well respectful.

[Prev]

Group of teenagers a few years back took up a new hobby. Murdering people and filming them selves doing it. Got caught in the end, but not after 21 people got killed.

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

[FredClogs]

Scary dudes, reminiscent of ISIS, took the might of the Mongol army to sort them out...

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