03.27.03
Orreries
There are few things I definitely, absolutely, burningly desire to own. A proper orrery comes just about top of the list.
Orreries are, of course, mechanical models showing the movements of the planets. A well-crafted orrery is truly a beautiful artefact.
There are very few people still making orreries. John Gleave is ‘probably the last orrery maker in England’. Brian Greig is an American who made the machine illustrated. Into the bargain, he looks thoroughly, erm, orrerofacient.
The Grand Illusions site has plenty of goodies besides orreries, and I’ll be returning there soon. For now, take a look at their Stanhopes and these dice, which are simply doing my head in. Is there a mathematician in the house?
diamond geezer said,
March 27, 2003 at 7:47 pm
These dice? Yep, I can explain them.
They’re called non-transitive dice, and there are four of them in the set.
Suppose you meet a willing mug in a pub who wants to lose some money. You ask them to pick any one of the four dice. Any one. Whichever dice they pick, you can then pick one of the other three which has a two-thirds chance of beating the first dice. Doesn’t matter which one they pick, you can always pick another dice that’ll probably beat them.
The dice are numbered like this:
A: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3
B: 2, 2, 2, 2, 6, 6
C: 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, 5
D: 0, 0, 4, 4, 4, 4
A usually beats B, B usually beats C, C usually beats D and (here’s the clever bit) D usually beats A.
Buy a set and head down to the pub now…
Steve said,
March 27, 2003 at 8:57 pm
That’s what we love about you DG, you’re so reliable when it comes to maths! Me, I gave up after a crap A-Level Pure & Mechanics teacher…
And as for Jon - you remember the marble runway wooden block set you blogged a couple of months ago? There’s a distributor in east london that also carries orreries I seem to remember. If you don’t know the place I’ll see if I can find it again. ‘Spensive tho!
Jon said,
March 28, 2003 at 11:49 am
Reminds me of Maths classes too. I scraped an A-level in the thing, but only by learning things that, no matter how hard I looked, just felt wrong.
The transient dice are just like that. The explanation just makes it worse. I can see that they work, but they just plain shouldn’t. Final proof that it’s not the universe that’s got it wonky, it’s me.*
I’d like to know where the shop is, cheers Steve. Not because I’m going to rush out and buy an orrery, but to get the marble bricks for a nephew or neice. As you say, orreries are fantastically expensive, and when (if) I can ever afford one, I’m going to get it hand-made.
* All in all a nice counterargument to Peirce I suppose.