I’m currently reading What If? by xkcd’s Randall Munroe. It’s pretty great. One of the sections elaborates on what would happen if you collected all of the elements of the periodic table in little cubes and put them together, as arranged in the periodic table. What unfolds is, obviously absurd given the lack of reality, but fascinating. One of the chemical reactions mentioned is related to the video above, describing what happens when gallium and aluminum hang out.
science
Slimmer Profile
After a few days flying blind thanks to a dead Dexcom transmitter, FedEx showed up today with a special, expedited delivery.
0.1″ slimmer than the previous model
After seeing Kerri share a picture of a new Dexcom transmitter, I suddenly wondered if my request was made “in time” to receive a smaller transmitter too. While I have gotten used to the size of the original G4 transmitter, a change of this magnitude would certainly be welcome.
Hearing the new transmitter is “0.1 inches slimmer than the previous model” doesn’t really do anything for me, however. It’s difficult to put that size into a proper context. So I lined up some pennies and oh-so-scientifically determined that the new transmitter is about 2 pennies smaller.
A Proper Sense of Scale
I saw this on my Facebook Timeline after recording another episode of my podcast, Just Talking. I’m glad I saw this after the recording. I don’t think I would have been able to focus on the conversation if I did things in a different order.
This is mind blowing, incredibly humbling, and worth every second of your time (the video is about 5 minutes long).
Click away.
