Massimo 
If you take a Petri dish, castor oil and some ball bearings and put all in an electric field, you might happen to spot an interesting behavior: self-assembling wires who appear to be almost alive
[📹 Stanford Complexity Group]
panu@Rainmaker1973
Okay, so can somebody please explain the science behind this? I'm guessing it has something to do with the electricity finding the path of least resistance, kinda like how lightning strikes where it strikes, or something. By how/why is it able to _make_ the path for itself, as appears to be happening here?
Okay, so can somebody please explain the science behind this? I'm guessing it has something to do with the electricity finding the path of least resistance, kinda like how lightning strikes where it strikes, or something. By how/why is it able to _make_ the path for itself, as appears to be happening here?
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKhere is a more detailed video of the experiment - you need 20 000 volts for it to happen - it is likely that magnetic fields are attracting the balls, although the paths they take are still under investigation (unfortunately Professor Alfred Hübler passed away in 2018).
It *is* possible to try it at home if you can get a 20 kV supply and have the space and knowledge to do the experiment safely 😉
Self-Assembling Wires
Nicole Parsons@vfrmedia @shadowdancer @Rainmaker1973
The overlap between complexity theory and chaos theory must be fascinating.
Eagerly awaiting more papers on these subjects!
mrg@Npars01 @vfrmedia @shadowdancer @Rainmaker1973 A several decades ago (so please take this with not just one grain of salt) I attended lecture about complexity theory and biology and the professor said something like "life is basically a dissipative structure suspended in the energy potential between the infalling sunshine and the outgoing heat radiation" so, in analogy, would these complex structures self-organize to dissipate the electrical potential over the dish?