Sphere Gears
August 26, 2014 5:54 AM   Subscribe

92 Gears is a lovely, hypnotic animated GIF. Ball Bearings in a Hypersphere is a mathematical discussion of its generalizations.
posted by Wolfdog (22 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
(I find this spiralling torus even more hypnotic.)
posted by Wolfdog at 5:55 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


The spiralling torus makes me feel vaguely ill. But, then, so does math.
posted by OmieWise at 5:59 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is a very cool piece of art. But it strikes me what a funny title it would have been if there were 4 more gears! (I guess the geometry doesn't really permit that)
posted by crazy_yeti at 6:03 AM on August 26, 2014 [2 favorites]


4 more gears!

Certainly. Well if rendered in a 4.7 partial dimensional faux-hilbert space.
posted by sammyo at 6:30 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


I took some "artistic license" with the gears. Can you spot it?

I can't but I will keep trying.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:31 AM on August 26, 2014


I like this spinning dancer. Is she going clockwise or counterclockwise?!
posted by entropone at 6:37 AM on August 26, 2014


For the artistic license, it looks as though the teeth of some of the smaller gears are slanted (relative to the gear face) more dramatically, while the larger gears they seem to be more perpendicular.

Not sure if this is it, but it seems like you might need to cheat there, in order to keep everything lined up.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:37 AM on August 26, 2014


I wanted to see a video of the hypergearsphere!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:40 AM on August 26, 2014


I am way too dumb to understand the hypersphere link, but I like the animations...
posted by Sangermaine at 6:44 AM on August 26, 2014


oh god I accidentally clicked a deviantart link at work! My heart was in my throat for a second.
posted by Theta States at 6:48 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's even better when you set it to an appropriate score
posted by Flashman at 7:08 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Gears all the way down on the new Who title sequence, too. Have we reached peak teeth?
posted by Devonian at 7:20 AM on August 26, 2014


For the artistic license, it looks as though the teeth of some of the smaller gears are slanted (relative to the gear face) more dramatically, while the larger gears they seem to be more perpendicular.

In the comments, the artist says that it's the curvature of the teeth; specifically, he uses hypoid gears instead of the spiral bevel gears (with straight teeth) that would be needed to make this device work in real life.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:28 AM on August 26, 2014


Derived from this: Continuously variable drive trains.
posted by marvin at 7:57 AM on August 26, 2014 [1 favorite]



Gears all the way down on the new Who title sequence, too. Have we reached peak teeth?


God it's terrible, isn't it? Does the BBC only have computer graphics folks from 1994?
posted by leotrotsky at 8:07 AM on August 26, 2014


Hypersphere? To me the first link looks like a frequency 2 geodesic dome, where the red and blue gears are vertices, the yellow gears are triangles, and the gaps are struts.
posted by aubilenon at 9:29 AM on August 26, 2014


To me, the first link looks like a soccer ball, where the blue gears are hexagons, the red gears are the pentagons, and the small yellow gears are their corners. The higher-dimensional stuff is in the second link.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:36 AM on August 26, 2014


This is really cool. But I'd be even more impressed to see an animated version of gears turning in this configuration.
posted by straight at 9:51 AM on August 26, 2014


Why play with renders when you can 3d print something similar that moves?
posted by Nelson at 2:31 PM on August 26, 2014


Wolfdog: A soccer ball is a frequency 3 geodesic thingamajig, and yeah, I think you're right that it's a better match than the frequency 2 one.
posted by aubilenon at 3:07 PM on August 26, 2014




Falling through an infinity of gears...
posted by kliuless at 8:45 PM on September 12, 2014


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