Oxford maths PhD student Sophie Abrahams explicates the Ig Nobel Prize-winning research on what happens when one walks backwards while (or whilst) holding a cup of coffee. The 2017 Ig Nobel Prize for fluid dynamics was awarded to Jiwon (Jessie) Han, for studying the dynamics of liquid-sloshing, to learn what happens when a person walks […]
Tag: backwards
Photographers walking backwards – and falling over (study)
It’s a staple gag for any slapstick movie. Trying for a wider shot, a photographer walks backwards (without looking) and trips over something. Amusing perhaps, but on occasions dangerous too. Odd then, that in the academic literature on safety and ergonomics, there a very few scholarly studies of this ubiquitous syndrome. In fact, there may […]
Further physics insight from walking backwards with coffee
“The authors derive their inspiration from an Ig Nobel prize-winning paper describing a basic mechanical model that investigates the results of walking backwards while carrying a cup of coffee.” So says the report “Mathematical model reveals solution to sloshing coffee,” in Phys.org. The Ig Nobel Prize-winning paper about walking backwards while carrying a cup of coffee […]
‘Reversed Paintings’ (Possibilizations for Thing-Theorists)
Before considering the history and implications of reversed paintings, we need a definition – and we have one provided by Richard Read, who is Winthrop Professor in Art History at the University of Western Australia. “I define the reversed painting as a painting of a painting reversed against the spectator.” Professor Read is writing in […]
An Undo Thesis [Ctrl-Z]
Dr. Chuk Moran has recently completed his dissertation on the undo command (ctrl-z) and received his PhD in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. Unfortunately, Improbable has not been able to track down an online copy of the dissertation, but we did find this short essay on the implications of ludological undoing. BONUS: […]
Reversal linguistics in explorations
“Geoffrey Sampson defends the extraordinary claim that there is no theoretically significant non-quantitative linguistic difference between a sentence of English and a string composed of the same words in the opposite order. Let me put that a different way. Order opposite the in words same the of composed string a and English of sentence a […]
A backwards film: chickens and Flannery O’Connor
British Pathe makes available one of their old films, in which animals are shown (though the magic of technology) walking backwards. The little girl in the film grew up to be the author Flannery O’Connor, so they say. (HT Jeff Betancourt)
The which bone is connected backwards to the what bone?
Two stories of bones believed to be in backwards: old and new. (Thanks to investigator Lauren Maurer for bringing the new case to our attention.)
Why NASA wrote backwards in space
David Brooks writes: NASA has launched – ha! get it? – a pretty cool Web site explaining the history of space suits…. Here’s my favorite factoid from the site: The writing on the gauges and dials on the front of suits used for spacewalks is backwards because the astronauts inside the suit have to use […]
Life, art, scrambled dinosaurs — again
Dinosaurs upside down, backwards, or scrambled are the subject of art yet again imitating life. In this case it’s art imitating life about the art of trying to describe life. The Onion has just published a splendid parody article called “Paleontologists: ‘We’ve Been Looking At Dinosaurs Upside Down“. But this joke has been lived out, […]