A box of bubbles
Aug. 22nd, 2008 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlyswotNot just an excuse to use my Rebecca Adlington icon again, I promise.
Really interesting discussion on The Material World yesterday about the construction of the Water Cube in Beijing. The foam-like structure is the result of an improvement to a packing problem that mathematicians and physicists have been working on since the middle of the 19th century. It is, in fact, regular not random: the random appearance is achieved by switching the axes of the design away from the normal vertical and horizontal. Also, the structure is built from plastic to help with the acoustics inside the cube.
If you listen again, there is possibly the worst link ever between the two items on the programme. The water cube is in the second half of the programme.
Really interesting discussion on The Material World yesterday about the construction of the Water Cube in Beijing. The foam-like structure is the result of an improvement to a packing problem that mathematicians and physicists have been working on since the middle of the 19th century. It is, in fact, regular not random: the random appearance is achieved by switching the axes of the design away from the normal vertical and horizontal. Also, the structure is built from plastic to help with the acoustics inside the cube.
If you listen again, there is possibly the worst link ever between the two items on the programme. The water cube is in the second half of the programme.