Three little bones

Shortly after Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, and paralleling the development of the transistor as I have outlined before, a boy was born, a boy who loved mud, dirt and making things.

Aided by a trip to Woolworths where his father purchased battery, flashlight bulb, switch and wire, he became infatuated with all things electricity. Meanwhile, out in the world, Moore's law was making its interminable progress

As a boy he loved to take things apart to "see how they worked". Regrettably he was not equally good at reassembling them, so in consequence he amassed (and probably still does) a vast stock of bits and pieces. On one, well-remembered occasion he attempted to build a radio using these parts. The chassis was made of Meccano and there was an ear phone and a volume control somewhere in the mix, but these and many other pieces he joined together without much understanding and somewhat randomly. He reasoned that the stuff had once constituted a working radio so why not again? To his upmost disappointment it did not work. He got better at this sort of thing over time although probably still reveres the age old method of trial and error mixed with a good portion of hope which gave Edison the light bulb.

Later he was taken to an amateur showing  see the Moody Science Institute Faith and Faith film "Dust or Destiny" which explored the wonders of the human body. He was, of course, fascinated, hooked, even infatuated. Then it was in 16mm acetate medium and the projector interested him almost as much as the content. Now-a-days you can watch these films on Youtube. 

At that time in school biology he happened to be studying the five senses and recalls handing in some homework in which he had reproduced material from the film in graphic detail: he got full marks but also a caution about keeping to the question...

But the workings of the ear (to take one example) are indeed amazing. Here's a picture of the three bones of the inner ear, which carry out impedance matching to maximise the transfer of energy from airborne sound to vibrations in the inner ear fluid.  Striking a tuning fork and then pressing its foot onto a wooden surface amplifies the sound in a similar way. All fine and dandy in theory, but if I were to design a microphone with inner workings that looked this messy I can be pretty sure it would fall on deaf ears so to speak.

Three tiny bones in the middle ear

Quote: The malleus and incus are suspended by two ligaments that provide an axis of rotation so that the middle ear bones pivot when the tympanic membrane vibrates. The footplate of the stapes inserts into the oval window of the inner ear whence nerve endings detect what we perceive as sound.

And then there's the cochlea or organ of Corti, the inner ear which transfers these vibrations into nerve impulses. All told, the ear surpasses most if not all man-made microphones in terms of sensitivity (quote the sensitivity of the ear is close to the ultimate limit at which it would begin to detect the noise fluctuations in the air) and dynamic range (around 120dB).

Quote: The inner ear is divided into two fluid filled chambers... The fluid in the two chambers differs on the basis of the kind of salt that each contains. The fluid in the outer or bony chamber is filled with a sodium salt solution (called perilymph) that resembles the salt composition in the blood or the fluids found in the brain. The inner or membranous chamber is filled with a potassium salt solution (endolymph) that resembles the fluid that is normally found inside the cells of the body. Specialized cells that line parts of the membranous chamber and “pump” potassium into the membranous chamber maintain the difference in concentration between the two chambers. The difference in the chemical composition of these two fluids provides chemical energy (like a battery) that powers the activities of the sensory cells. 

The inner ear organs must be small because any increase in their size would increase their mass... [which would] decrease the sensitivity... The mass of the cochlear sensory epithelium is further reduced because it has only a small number of blood vessels... reduced by a unique system for converting the metabolic energy from sugar and oxygen in the blood into an electrical potential... the auditory system is sensitive enough to “hear” the vibrations associated with blood moving through blood vessels. It is fortunate they are located away from the organ of Corti.

There's much more detail freely available on the internet. You can find papers that purport to explain such workings of the human body and the implied evolutionary process but they often seem to me to use highly specialised terms only to obfuscate, for example (my emphasis):

All reptiles and birds have only one middle ear ossicle [bone], the stapes or columella. How these two additional ossicles came to reside and function in the middle ear of mammals has been studied for the last 200 years and represents one of the classic example of how structures can change during evolution to function in new and novel ways. From fossil data, comparative anatomy and developmental biology it is now clear that the two new bones in the mammalian middle ear, the malleus and incus, are homologous to the quadrate and articular, which form the articulation for the upper and lower jaws in non-mammalian jawed vertebrates. The incorporation of the primary jaw joint into the mammalian middle ear was only possible due to the evolution of a new way to articulate the upper and lower jaws, with the formation of the dentary-squamosal joint, or TMJ in humans. The evolution of the three-ossicle ear in mammals is thus intricately connected with the evolution of a novel jaw joint, the two structures evolving together to create the distinctive mammalian skull. 

Suffice it to say the design of the human ear is remarkable. Some would see this as evidence for an Intelligent Creator but then what or who designed the creator? By introducing God the need for intelligent design has simply been shifted. That all reptiles and birds have only one middle ear bone whilst we have three implies an evolutionary step which creationists contest. I am not endorsing either view (frankly I do not know) but I do marvel at how a bunch of bones, tissues, blood and gore could possibly detect sound with a sensitivity sensitivity close to the theoretical limit and enable us to communicate and to enjoy the emotional depths and artistry of music. Could a random assembly of electronic components ever become a first class radio receiver?

My first wireless set and stodge

Just as it was my fault for suggesting a flying lesson for Kate's 18'th, so this electronics thing was my father's fault for taking me, at an early age, to Woolworths (the UK sort, not Oz) and buying me a battery, wire and some flash-light bulbs. The rest was history in each case.

At that tender age I had contemplated being a train driver, a plumber, a joiner, an electrician (figuring that electronics was much too complicated). My train driving has been restricted to model railways, otherwise I have done all these.

I have happy childhood memories of powering a flash-light on one side of our wood shed from a battery on the other side via a length of house cable buried under the dirt floor. The concept that energy and information could be carried across that distance fascinated me.

I graduated into electronics when folk started to offload on me ancient and no-longer-working wireless sets, sometimes even TVs. I was smitten by the fancy colours on resistors. And I figured being an electrician was too dangerous anyway, with all those high voltages. I used to disassemble these sets into component level. I wondered greatly at how a volume control could work, as when I connected it in series with a battery and bulb nothing happened.

On one occasion I decided to build my own wireless set. I suppose I might have been 10 years old. I made a sort of box out of Meccano and inside it connected various components from my cache, somewhat randomly. I had a pair of headphones for the output, and doubtless a volume control, an aerial, and two convenient wires which I duly attached to a battery and wonderingly donned the headphones. Sadly I heard nothing. Apparently my random approach to design wasn't the ticket. However, the experience has coloured my view on Darwinian evolution.

The subject of school stodge is related only in so far as I happened, whilst this post was in draft stage, to watch my daughter-in-law L squashing the middle of each of several muffins whilst still in the baking tin with an inverted egg-cup (prior to filling the voids with apple). Which brought back memories.

School dinners were legendary. This was before the time of cafeteria-style-students-have-a-choice days. The choice was simply take it or leave it. Occasionally we would see deliveries of fresh produce and we would wonder how the kitchen could convert all this to what we found on our plates. Having said that some meals were OK - butterscotch tart being one such exception,

although the school variety was served in a rectangular aluminium tray and the colour was not as golden as the photo.

A more common dessert (or pudding) was what we called stodge. Stodge came in various flavours and was served with custard which came in various colours (pink, yellow or brown). Stodge was basically a steamed sponge though "sponge" is a bit of a euphemism. We developed a test for stodge. Having put some in a bowl you would use the convex side of your spoon to compress it. If it collapsed and liquid visibly flowed out then it was stodge. Since school days I have eaten many substances that call themselves "sponge" and none has yielded to this test, yet all school stodge did. It wasn't that it was inedible - it was just... wet.

Most treasured possession

When I say that this is my most treasured possession, like saying yellow is my favourite colour, it is somewhat tongue in cheek. But some truth as well. Some might say it should be my wife but I am not at all sure that one "possesses" a wife. Semantics aside, for the purposes of this post I will maintain my ground.

Most treasured possession

What is it? It is a Rank-Strand Cinemoid swatch book, which I have kept all these years in a box that once contained a "2 MEG LIN L/S" potentiometer. Samples of what are known in the trade as "gels" and used to colour stage lights. The price "2/6" dates it before UK decimalisation in 1971. Back then my older sister had a friend who was involved in theatrical lighting and, besotted as I was with all things colour, I begged him to save me some Cinemoid off-cuts. He went beyond all I could have dreamed and acquired this book for me.  Cinemoid was introduced in 1960 - before that theatre lights were coloured by sheets of dyed gelatin hence "gels", but these could easily melt so had a very short lifetime. Cinemoid was made of acetate and was self extinguishing and came in a glorious range of colours. I saved pocket money to buy some sheets, and later was given a pile of off-cuts the remains of which I still have, closely guarded against the perils of community living. Of which, during one notable period, we could own only that which we could fit into our bedroom, and bedrooms back then were quite small and it was not unusual to return from a trip to find that the contents had been moved lock, stock and barrel to another location. And the movers were more interested in getting the job over and done with than with caring for one's possessions. 

with a colour wheel I made

In spite of this restriction I still have my Cinemoid swatch book and still, I am pleased to say, have my wife.

The Cinemoid brand now seems to have been superseded by Rosco and Lee and, I suppose, with RGB LED lamps there is less call for filters. In spite of this Cinemoid swatch books like mine are not so very uncommon and may be got on eBay for about 20 GBP.

I sacrificed parts of some of my swatches to made for example the colour wheel above. When spun this gave a reasonable approximation to "white".

I still love it.

Dated much earlier in Bailey history is the colour wheel in my next picture. My father made this, I suppose, when he was a boy - it is hand-painted with water colours on a card disk about 6" diameter made to fit a Meccano circular plate and the idea was to spin it to demonstrate that white light is composed of a spectrum of colours. From previous experience I know its "white" was not very, in fact more beige. But to prove the point I have mounted the wheel on a small d.c. motor and here you have the results.

My father's colour wheel attempt

Here it is spinning at speed

Slowing down

And finally stationary

For completeness I repeated this experiment using my own colour wheel with somewhat better results. This probably reflects on the better colour purity of Cinemoid filters compared with war time children's water colours!  You'll note also that my father has the traditional seven rainbow colours whereas I have the three primary and three secondary colours. Perhaps this says something about tradition.

My colour wheel attached to d.c. motor

Spinning slowly

Spinning fast the colours mix to a plausible white

Which brings me to my father's secret cupboard and another treasured possession. We children all knew about his cupboard in my parent's bedroom under the steps that led to the attic, attic of model railway fame on one side and my older sister's boudoir on the other. But to open the cupboard - this was strictly out of bounds. Although when suitably sure of not being discovered, I did occasionally peep in. I cannot of course divulge what was in that cupboard apart from to say that he kept his Meccano there. Which Pandora's box I am pleased to have inherited and is shown below.  It was at one time in its more distant past a canteen for cutlery, hence the blue lining inside.

My father's Pandora's box

Treasure inside the box

Smaller parts in the tray

I may have mentioned before the colours on a 56K-ohm resistor which was contributory to my choice of career, colour light signals confirming my love of railways, or the visible spectrum drawing me to loving optics, and so on. And yet if you ask people in the community here I think they would agree that I would be the last person to comment on or contribute to the choice of colour for walls, carpet or curtains. And this is not because I do not have opinions.

As a final reminder that this writer loves colour, I woke this morning to open the curtains (there's another potential blog post hidden in this action) and saw a blue dawn with the yellow moon setting behind the tree line. I did not think my camera would do it justice but the results are not too far from what I actually saw.

A study in blue and yellow

Rhaetian Railway

I grew up loving railways. My father's railway room and going to school on what is now the Watercress Line might have had something to do with it. I could have been a train driver, or maybe the surveyor who decides the optimal route as a track traverses mountains - or involved in signalling. Witness the episode in which I incised cuttings in my parent's lawn for my Lone Star track, or the complex signalling system I created in the railway room, or imaging myself a train whilst running around the playing fields during the lunch hour at school. One of my main doodle types when I am bored in meetings is to create railway systems. You can see that I am kind of soft in the head about railways.

Die cast Lone Star track and rolling stock

This locomotive I christened "Bournemouth"

and this one "Swanage"

Along with bricks of various kinds and Meccano (I still have and cherish my father's Mecanno set) these Lone Star models were amongst my favourite toys. I do not know why I named one locomotive "Bournemouth" and another "Swanage" but to this day if I hear of or read either place-name I am immediately presented with a mental image of the corresponding Lone Star avatar.

But I digress. What caught my eye today was this travel feature about the Rhaetian Railway. Wow - this is a railway and a half and how I would love to have the money and time to waste to navigate the whole length of it. Google Street View have imaged some of the track - possibly the first and only "Railway View"!

The track gauge is 3 ft 3³⁄₈ in  as opposed to standard gauge of 4 ft 8¹⁄₂ in.

Here's a short video I found...

What do you see?

What do you see when you look at these pictures?

They are both pictures of traction engines - the location being the village fair at Hollywood, Co. Wicklow.  My eyes are drawn to then centrifugal governor, very obvious in both pictures.

Recently I had reason to describe the principle to a colleague, someone who understands computers so has technical understanding.  So I showed him the two photographs and he was none the wiser.  Apparently he had never come across the device and he did not immediately see how it works. With my Meccano set I learnt about and built such things from an early age - how different people are!

Here is another area where the modern version has been dumbed down.  Compare the modern Meccano site with, for example these instructions or this familiar list-of-parts.  Is it really that folk have less sense now-a-days, or it is just a shift in interest? A reader's letter in E&T July 2012 claims that the word "craft" has now been excluded from the national design and technology curriculum and the school curriculum, to be replaced I suppose by computer expertise. Instead of building complex models people spend their spare time playing computer games. In contrast I remember a book from my father's era that I read as a boy with a title "1001 things for a boy to do".  Included in this number was making a real model steam engine almost from scratch.  For the more demanding parts the child was directed to ask a favour from the nearest machine shop.  Even then times had changed and I could not imagine going to this length.  But now-a-days I cannot believe that the average boy would even thinks about such things.