Feb. 24th, 2012

nancylebov: (green leaves)


I do not recommend this video. It's got too much gosh wow and too little information. Also too much "math is a cool thing that's alien to almost everyone"-- even a little of that is too much.

However, it's really remarkable that the throwing a ball bearing at a crystal sphere produces vibrations with a distribution similar to the distribution of primes. There. You didn't have to listen to five minutes of blather to find that out.

In fact, it was so remarkable that I checked to see whether this is a hoax, but it isn't.

I'm inclined to think that finding the Riemann sequence in traffic patterns is mere data mining, but what could be going on with the physics? And does it have to be a crystal ball and a ball bearing, or will other shapes and materials do the trick?

My tentative theory is that evenly divisible frequencies cancel out, leaving the primes behind. Two smart people have told me this sounds plausible, but I don't know enough to check on whether this theory makes sense.

First link thanks to [livejournal.com profile] andrewducker. I can't remember where I saw the video, but perhaps that's just as well considering how critical I am of it.

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
141516 17181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 10th, 2026 09:52 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios