From: mike regan (make-r_at_webtv.net)
Date: 10/03/98
From: make-r_at_webtv.net (mike regan) Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 09:02:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Recipe' only a reference Message-ID: <1594-36164AAA-1458@mailtod-162.iap.bryant.webtv.net>
Bakng a pie, one uses grandmother's recipe', but still changes the
procedure to fit one's own taste.
Some further thoughts on construction of floating oceanic spheres,
mega-bubbles,et al:
Hinging: Well, I must modify my earlier thought about
one-dimensional hinge-axes. When three circles (hoops) are attatched to
each other, and there is movment perpendicular to their planes, a
predictable kind of relative motion occurs: The 1/6th of the circles
that are the arcs in the middle can go up, while the other 5/6ths go
down. Or vice-versa. . . . There can be no other degrees of freedom,
unless the hoops are each twistable, or the connections allow adjoining
hoops to move towards and away from each other. When this inner-up,
outer=down motion occurs, the hinge axes, which can be seen as three
lines, pointing to the center between hoops, move from lines in a plane
to lines on a cone. Obviously, a plane can't form a cone unless a wedge
of its surface is removed,
One way for the higes to allow for this, is to allow for flexibility
or movement inward and outward from the centers of the hoops. (Not good)
Another would to allow for a rotation in the axis perpedicular to the
hinge, which is on a radial line to the ceter of the hoop.
A totally different solution, and one that I favor, having
fantasized it long ago, is, having totally rigid connections around the
equators, add trussing across the tops and bottoms of the spheres.
Being round, they can rotate, or the sea can rotate around them. In a
group of three, connected as one, you have the mnimum (and maxmum)
number for stability: three-point floatation. I've thought about as it
applies to multihull boats, because the riggig could be employed
integral to the whole structure, making, in effect, a tetrahedron, in
which there would be very little stress on the decking. (Only tension
and compresson through the struts, or frame members.
While you're at it, making a totally rigidly connected collection fo
structures (which gets stronger as it gets larger, as it must to
conteract the ever larger forces acting on it, why not immitate nature
herself? Add bubbles onto bubbles, to accumulate a collection of rooms
and spaces, as in sea-foam. . . . .SEA-FOAM......WOW1