Revisiting renge spoons

Are they Chinese spoons? Unsure...

Previously, my renge spoons were typical(?) renge spoon imitations, as you can see here below.



They are the three brownish ones on the right hand side and they were not unpopular. However, they were still distinctively Chinese (?) looking. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It is just the taste.

It was about time that I produced new designs, universal designs. The odd man out in this same photo is my attempt. You can see more clearly with the next two photos.





I do not like it. It does not look Chinese, but it is no good. It is too deep at the spoon end. You can see the extent of the depth with the next photo.



The same spoon is sitting on the L angled aluminum piece, which is a depth (or thickness) jig. In this case it is as deep as 20 mm. My short tongue would not reach its bottom...

There was an additional reason. You cannot work efficiently with this thickness. Normally, or almost always I work with 34 mm thick wood, bought directly from a shop. In order to take out 2 pieces from the same area of wood its thickness must be less than 17 mm. And, I happen to have a 16 mm jig.

However, working with thin pieces does have problems. The lateral curvature can be restrictive, more so if the handle or stem length is short. You ideally want somewhat accentuated lateral profile. Here below is my answer.



It came into being accidentally. All I knew was that given the starting thickness I will have to make the spoon end flattish. If any, even at the expense of looking odd. It was all accidental, but I knew, in so doing, it started resembling something I had seen before.

It was the rice spatula, sold commonly at 100 yen shops, I think. I swear I did not copy it. Besides, I do not think that rice spatulas have thickness issues that I had.

Following three photos should suffice to show you what I am on about.







Relatively short stem, very shallow spoon area, and yet comfortable hand grip, all these properties combine to present this particular type of renge spoons as a proud member of my portfolio.

I am very much pleased about this accidental outcome today. These should make very good gifts, actually...

中国語には文法がない

我在駅

この中国語表現、じっと見ていると何となく意味は分かる。大きな始発駅みたいなものを除いて「駅」には別の漢字が使われるが、ここでは問題ではない。

日本人的には上記の表現は「私は駅にある」、または、「私は駅にいる」だろう。過去表現や未来形はどうするかは別問題だが。で、あるネット上の解説書には、この「在」と言う漢字は動詞ではなくて前置詞だと書いてあった。また、別の解説書には動詞だと書いてある場合もある。

どちらが本当なのか、と言うような問いかけは私の知っているゲルマン語系やロマンス語系の言語ではありえない事だ。日本語でもないだろう。

随分前の事だが、中国語は中原（黄河の中流域）で中国各地から集まった商売人の間での簡易言語として発達したと書いてあるのを見かけた事がある。面積が広大なため極端な方言が各地に存在し、その故に遠隔地から集まったお互い同士を唯一理解しあえるのが表意文字としての漢字なので、使用法も簡易化されたという趣旨だ。（でも、私は世界標準的な？表現を導入したくても漢字の複雑さ故に出来なかった、と思っている）

以前、仕事で台北に滞在していた時にＴＶを見ていて思ったことがある。大抵の場合、画面の下に字幕が漢字で出ている。これも方言の違いを埋める為だとは思うが、ＴＶを見ていて、ふと思ったのは「漢字に過去形ってないよな」だった。

それで台湾人の友人に聞いてみた。彼の答えは、文章の何処かに過去なら過去を示す漢字があるか、あるいは文脈で判る、と言うものだった。英語で言うと、例えば：

I meet he yesterday

になる。昨日、彼に会った、の意味だ。駅で会ったと追加するなら：

I meet he station yesterday

になる。で、冒頭の表現だが、もし「在」が前置詞だと信じるなら：

I at station

になるわけで、「「私 at 駅」なら、私は駅を食べたとか、壊したとかでなく、「私は駅にいる」以外、常識的に考えられないだろう」と言う私の台湾人の友人の声が大きく聞こえてくる。

とても乱暴な言語だと思う。確かに、一定のル－ルはあるのだろうが、恐らく通常我々が親しんでいる様な文法ではないだろう。私が中国語には「文法が存在しない」と考える所以だ。逆に言うと、漢字を理解できる日本人にとって比較的覚えやすい言語でもある。あまり細かいことを覚える必要がないからだ。

更に幾つかの例を以下に示す。

日本銭真多:　(日本は本当にお金を沢山持っている)

これは見れば判る、が、他の言語では動詞があるのに。。。。

是不是？　(どうなの？)
「是」は英語のＢＥ動詞に相当するが、ここでは「yes?, or, not yes?]と言っている訳だが、まあ、気持ちは分かるような気がする。でも、

 問我是不是？　(それを私に聞いているの？)

は「Ask I yes, or not yes?」なので、じっと考えていると、中国語の発想法がだんだんと見えて来るような気がする。

到底是不是？　　　(つまり結局どうなの？)

この辺になると漢字の意味と運用の問題になるが、最後に歌の歌詞を見て見よう。「長崎は雨だった」の漢字バ－ジョンの一部にある：

分離、分離後、再相見、不易

句読点は判りやすくするために私が付けた。意味は明白だと思う。実は発音も非常に日本語に近くて、「ぶんり、ぶんりご、さいそうけん、ふい」と聞こえる。ピンイン表記は「ふんり、ふんりほう、さいしゃんちぇん、ふい」となっているが実際には慣れないと最初は「ぶんり、ぶんりご、さいそうけん、ふい」と聞こえる。

意味は、一度別れたら二度と会うのは難しい、だが、ここには我々が当然と思っている要素が幾つも欠落している。なので、私は中国語を今では「キャッチフレ－ズ言語」と呼び始めてる。
 
 

Snow crystals -5

I am not exactly convinced by what I was saying. It is largely because I cannot persuade myself that six arms of the same length can and will form from the basic unit I attempted to describe.



Top above is my next attempt. It is a plastic template for a large number of paper pieces of the same size. 104.5 degrees are there. In place of hydrogen bonding I will be using sellotapes to turn these molecular planes into a three dimensional structure.

The oxygen to hydrogen arm is 5 cm, so this is 500 million times larger than the actual molecular plate.

I have got this nagging thought that the squashed cube like unit I described earlier in -4 may not be right. Six of these planes above may not completely enclose the volume inside the imagined ice unit of minimum size.

I may turn out to be wrong and that will certainly push me into a very tight corner. On the other hand, if the basic unit is a little more complex I may be able to build on it to produce arms of some sort... We will see.



Model making began like above. Two more faces to be bonded, or sellotaped. Already, at this stage I was very low, because the volume can be closed perfectly...



T is denoting the top of the model. Unseen at the bottom is B. So, there are S1, S2, S3, and S4, all surrounding the volume, closed by the top T and the bottom B faces, and that is 6 faces altogether.





Here, you can see the bottom face, B. Does this number 6 correspond to the six arms?

To each of these six faces can be attached one additional basic unit. If we now assume that all of these six faces are fully attached to that might present an interesting picture.

It will be looking flat, will it not? Yes, there is a block, above and below, but if you look at the whole assembly right from above there are 5 surfaces, including the top surface of the additional block above the original top surface.

We can cast our mind to the next step, assuming again that all exposed surfaces will be attached to. If we look at it from above we will then see 13 surfaces (or faces) and one additional block each attached to the existing top and bottom block.

No, it is wrong! The top and bottom blocks will have one block added to their top and bottom surfaces, but in addition they each will have 4 additional units, newly attached to their own sides.

We can go on like this, and I am beginning to feel that the spread sideways could be faster than the vertical growth, because of something I can think of. To explain it I will have to rely on another schematic.

Put simply, though, it is the preferential attachment process, I think. Particular attachment process is perhaps more difficult, statistically...All this must be the result of quantum mechanics.

If the basic unit of snow crystal is a perfect cube, no preferential growth will be possible, but here we are dealing with a funny shaped cube, squashed cube...because that is what quantum mechanics dictates to us.

collapsing of towering blocks, or centre pillars, interesting research by a group at Osaka university, in relation to biological systems, possible self flattening mechanism

Snow crystals -4

I am not good at drawing things, not at all with drawing software. So, what is shown below is my best attempt, using Skitch.



What I am saying is that this must be the minimum unit of ice in nature. At least, this is my understanding of a quantum mechanically stable ice. This schematic is not very much exaggerated, and there is already a striking feature to be noticed.

This thing can and will multiply into a bulk structure through stacking via hydrogen bonding, containing billions of these mini ice crystals. Note that this unit is too small to be seen with naked eyes. When you look at the bulk you will not notice that it is not made up of regular cubes.

How would I describe a regular cube? I would probably say that it looks benign enough, even peaceful as its corners are not particularly pointing. However, above structure already looks dangerous, to me. For a start corners are pointing. Also, if other units are added, or attached to the starting unit the growth directions will not be perpendicular. Growth directions will be slanted.

If, for instance, we are looking at the growth direction from the top and bottom surfaces only (that is to say, we are now observing the growth sideways) one growth may be in the direction of two o'clock, and the other in the direction of eight o'clock.

With a regular cube as the starting unit we would naturally expect growth in X-Y-Z directions, perpendicular to one another. In that case, snow crystals would be looking like a cross! Or, would they, really?

雪の結晶の画像

５、７、9　why six arms? why six, not any other numbers?

恐らく部分的な溶解と再凍結のものも also, indication of fractals, possibly
notice one thing in common, except a few

one possibility may be that in the case of re-freezing there are already an extremely large number of water molecules in the vicinity and even if the rule of selective addition of water molecules still applies seed crystals are already inundated with would-be candidates and bulk ice is formed rather quickly, whereas a seed ice in air turbulence does not have many around it and selective attachment takes place over a much longer period, enough time to form characteristic 6 arms?

have been scribbling away, but an eternal process

cumulative attachment or deposition or whatever, statistical, even growth via
centre of gravity temporallily offset away from star centre

bulk transport of local air mass in turbulence, molecular sharing and bonded water molecules in a plane

Snow crystals -3

I will illustrate this later with a few diagrams, produced by SKITCH.

I think I might be beginning to see some lights there and over there along the horizon, very faint, but slightly encouraging.

It is like this. We normally see a block of ice and somehow believe that ice has cubic and three dimensional structures. It must be wrong. That is to say, an ice block is not composed of cubes, where each cube is looking like a dice.

My thought experiment is as follows.

If you have a dice like cube and assume that each connecting point (corner) has three degrees of freedom (each corner is flexible) then you can squash it.

Before doing that, let us imagine that we have a square, a planar square and that each corner has similar degrees of freedom. With this square, we can apply pressure and change its shape, so that two opposite corners have 104.5 degrees.

So, remaining two opposite corners will have 75.5 degrees. Quantum mechanics is saying that with this diamond shape two water molecules can be hydrogen bonded in a stable manner.

Of course, planar molecules are not yet crystals. We must stack them. In order to stack two molecular layers to form a stable and minimum sized solid crystal the only way to do so would be to slide these two opposite planes so that their side view will also look like a diamond.

So, we now have a squashed diamond shaped cube like structure. It now daunts on me that it is in fact the unit of any ice in this universe. You can now imagine that further stacking can take place above and below and sideways.

Interestingly, 14.5 degrees is the deviation from 90 degrees. There must be something here, too. However, the main point here must be that snow crystals must represent the normal shape of ice, solid water molecules.

Here, I am thinking of the Snow brand milk and its logo. If I remember rightly each of the six arms has an arrow like structure. Am I simply imagining it? Or, is it from my memories of snow crystal pictures?

Arrows are normally associated with progression. In this case random contacts in air turbulence leading to next layer of water molecules, if and only if the right orientation is achieved in the contacting process.

I think this explains why snow crystals can spread arms outwardly. However, it is not yet clear why there are usually six arms. It must be to do with this 14.5 degrees, I think...

also, why same arm lengths, one end does not need to know what its opposite end is doing, because random stacking, why flat,

we may think ice x snow, but it is snow, quantum mechanical ice is snow, bulk ice hides it, quantum mechanics shown macroscopic is the point

パエ－リャの旅行ガイド - ボルネオ北部サピ島の生き物達

これはイグアナではない。イグアナは家内のメキシコ人の友達が言うには片手で持てる程小さくて、メキシコでは焼トカゲにして食べるとの事。動画のトカゲは、ずっと大きくて、体長１メ－トル以上はあった。

これは、当日見かけた２匹目のオオトカゲで、ジェティ－から歩いて100メ－トル程の海辺のゴミ捨て場でウロウロしていた。最初の１匹は、木陰でビ－ルを飲んでいたら、数メ－トル先に裏山から出て来て悠然と歩いていた。回りには人が沢山いたのに、気にしないようだ。間違いなくやぶの中に住んでいると思う。

戦時中、食料として南洋の旧日本軍の兵士たちが「トカゲ」を捕まえて食べていた、という事をよく聞くが、日本にいる小さなトカゲを想像していたので、さぞかしひもじい思いをしていたのだろうとの思っていたが、違うのかも知れない。

兎に角、慌てて逃げる事をしないので、見ていて面白い。３０分の間に２匹も出て来たので、山の中には沢山住んでいると想像している。



直ぐ近くで、女の子達がキャ－キャ－が騒いでいるので見に行くと、今度は野生のイノシシ、これも逃げようとはしない。然も、5,　6頭の親子連れで出て来た。観光客が入れる部分はとても限られているので、裏山から出て来たのは間違いないが、サピ島自体は小さな島なので、普段は矢張り、木の根とか食べているのだろう。ごみだけで繁殖できるとは思えないからだ。



テレビの番組などでは、ブタを丸焼きにするが、イノシシは食べないのだろうか？今度、聞いてみたい。と言うか、また出て来るか、見に行きたい！おやつ、あげたい！

Snow crystals - 2

quantum mechanical stability at 104.5 degrees

hydrogen bonding

in-isotropic and turbulent atmosphere, gravitational acceleration,
geomagnetic field lines, perhaps even solar radiation

macroscopic instability of momentarily connected water molecules

金平糖

I may be terribly wrong, but I will say it anyway because what I am going to say is probably not the point. In any event, I will have to amplify on this. My naive thinking is as follows.

If water molecules are quantum mechanically stable with 90 degrees angle between oxygen-hydrogen arms then it probably means that you only need 4 water molecules to form a minimum cubic structure. However, if you come to think about it it is already a mini ice crystal on its own.

If bonding continues and if you get, eventually, a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm ice cube you will still know that it is of regular cubic lattice structure. And, it is not very interesting.

However, the dynamical process itself before this ice cube formation is not a mystery. Water molecules coming into random contact with random orientation will be rejected from forming a structure except only those lucky ones with the right orientation, perhaps in air turbulence or perhaps in some free waters.

We know, however, that it is not right, not at all. The angle is not right. It is not 90 degrees, but 104.5 degrees.

So, although I cannot visualize immediately how bonding scheme works and what the intermediate structure would be looking like in this process a lot of water molecules will have been rejected from participation in crystal formation and only those with hydrogen affinity will remain to form some sort of ice crystals.

However, these primitive baby ice crystals will not be being formed looking like an infinite addition of proper 90 degrees ice cubes end to end. This is because the property of its starting block (water molecules) does not have 90 degrees in it.

Nonetheless, they would like to be bonded, because of the quantum mechanical affinity. The net result would be looking like star fish, I think, as we are all familiar with.

Anyway, because the angle is not 90 degrees the bonding orientation will be different from what we would normally imagine from 90 degrees. Quite how different, I do not know. I do not have access to a super computer.

Put poetically, the progression will be slanted, I think. OK, we will still get a chunk of large ice crystals, but because of this non-90 degrees property their surfaces will be unstable, more unstable compared with metal lattice structure.

That is to say, they will start melting at the surface, not from deep inside the crystal, I think. Metal blocks will start melting in one go and as a whole chunk, not gradually and slowly from surface inwards.

Actually, the arm length also may matter, if you come to think about it...Or, does it? Also, the angle difference of 10.5 degrees. Is it a multiple of something eventual?

I still have a long way to go from understanding the apparent flatness of the ice crystals. OK, you have gravity and all that in the atmosphere, but strong turbulence will almost certainly make it isotropic, at least instantaneously, during seed core formation.

I need to sleep on this, for the moment...

Snow crystals -1 arms' mystery

initial seed molecular shape?

As far as I know almost all of cosmic events are spherically expansive, from the centres outward in isotropic manner. By "isotropic" is meant "same in all directions".

Typical examples might be supernova explosions. You get all kinds of constituent elements gushing out outwardly from the centres. In that respect, one might say that crystal arm formation is a rare event in the universe that we live in.

Perhaps, crystal arm formation is an earth bound, or gravity bound local event, is it? Whichever...In any event I do not know of three dimensional crystals.

My greatest concern and interest is not there, at all. I am more interested in just how on earth these arms are formed. In particular, when one arm is progressively being formed outwardly how does it know what other arms might or might not be doing.

Is it aware at all that there are indeed other arms?

Anyway, it bothers me a lot because these ice crystals are reproducible in large quantities. If all ice crystals look different I will not be bothered. The fact that they are exactly alike must mean that there is a simple rule, and I want to do a thought experiment here.

Actually, I may have bitten off too much to digest. In any event I want to look for images of a water molecule. In imagining how ice crystals are formed I will assume two dimensional development, simply because that is what I normally find as the pictures of any single crystal.

If ice crystals are formed into three dimensional structures in mid air (apart from thickness, that is) and become suddenly flat on landing on a window pane, say, oh no! I would not buy it! We are not talking about quantum mechanics!

I firmly believe that they are flat in mid air, too, as well as upon landing on anything on the ground. So, if I find a water molecule model I might connect them into a flat structure and see if that might change into star like formation...

quantum mechanical stability at 104.5 degrees

hydrogen bonding

in-isotropic and turbulent atmosphere, gravitational acceleration,
geomagnetic field lines, perhaps even solar radiation

macroscopic instability of momentarily connected water molecules

金平糖


(tc)

Coating scheme narrated - part 1

I have been reminded that I need to upload something detailed about my coating scheme. What follows herewith is my attempt.