“Users of shoe apparel (e.g., shoes, sneakers, etc.) often place socks on their feet before positioning their feet into the shoe apparel; such placement is advantageous for a number of reasons. First, a sock may prevent friction between the skin of a user’s feet and the inside of the shoe apparel, thereby alleviating, or minimizing, […]
Tag: hole
Upside down glass of water experiment revisited [study]
Dr Johan Lindén who is a lecturer at the Faculty of Science, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, has investigated the (famous) upside down glass of water experiment. But with a crucial variation – the card has a hole cut in it. Nevertheless, the water still stays in the glass – providing that the hole is small enough. […]
Holes around holes of little or no benefit in golf putting [new study]
The Ebbinghaus illusion (a.k.a. Titchener circles) is a robust optical illusion discovered more than 100 years ago. Two identically-sized* circles are presented, one is surrounded by large circles, the other by small circles. The one surrounded by small circles looks bigger. In 2012, a research group from Purdue University, the Max Planck Institute and the […]
Hole Assessment by Finger and Tongue [research study]
A markedly penetrating report, involving fingers, tongues, and holes: “Differences in the oral size illusions produced by cross-modality matching of peg and hole stimuli by the tongue and fingers in humans,” Bruce Melvin and Robin Orchardson, Archives of Oral Biology, vol. 46, no. 3, March 2001, pp. 209-13. The authors, at the University of Glasgow, […]
Doughnut holes revisited (new essay)
Dr Suki Finn who is a postdoctoral research fellow in philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK, poses a question in a recent AEON magazine article : ‘Is a hole a real thing, or just a place where something isn’t?’ Pointing out that: “[…] a better understanding of where holes lie on the material/immaterial and […]
A round-up of American hole-in-one jurisprudence
Of all the curious things one can get insurance cover for – the golfing fraternity’s ‘hole-in-one-insurance’ is surely one of the curiouser. Why would one want insurance against a hole-in-one? The answer lies in the substantial cash bonus prizes which (some) golf clubs offer to those players who manage to get one. From the club’s […]
The Presence of the Absence of Absences
Although it’s possible to create a swathe of specially crafted ‘academic drivel’ on the concept of the Absence of Absences that certainly doesn’t preclude the concept from serious study. In fact there’s quite a body of academic work which addresses this very subject – see for example the work of George Botterill (University of Sheffield, UK) […]
Preference peculiarities: Curves good – or angles bad?
In 1753 (or thereabouts) William Hogarth published his study into ‘The analysis of Beauty’ (“Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste.”) He was particularly interested in the ‘Perfect Curve’. For Hogarth, number 4 hit the spot. Scroll forward to April 2015 for another study about curves, which asks whether peoples’ apparent […]
Holes in doughnuts – the philosophical implications (part 1)
Achille C. Varzi, who is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York, is interested in the philosophical implications of holes and voids, prompting a unique investigation into a special subset of hole-bearing entities – namely doughnuts (that’s ‘donuts’ US). “A doughnut always comes with a hole. If you think you can come up with […]
MYSTERY: Big body through a little hole?
Some folks love a real-life forensic mystery, of which this is one: “A matter of large body passing through a small hole: The holeproof out the window,” F. Patel, Forensic Science International, Volume 56, Issue 2, October 1992, Pages 183–188. The author, at the Department of Forensic Medicine, UMDS Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, University […]