SteamyTea

The Physicist have sorted it out (with help from his mum). From this week's comic. Physics Physicists create formula for how many times you can fold a crêpe When you fold a flexible material such as a pancake or a tortilla, its behaviour depends on a competition between gravity and elasticity Bas den Hond 19 March 2026, updated 27 March 2026 There is a limit to how many times you can fold a crêpe If you gently fold a disc made of some flexible and possibly tasty material, what makes it stay folded? And how many times can you fold it before it puts up a fight and flips back? A physicist from France, home of the crêpe, decided to find out. He discovered that just one number tells you all you need to know. The perfect boiled egg takes more than half an hour to cook Tom Marzin at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, wondered about crêpe-folding when he was on holiday in his home region of Brittany, France, where this thin pancake is especially popular. Just folding a tip of it would result in it flipping back, but with a larger fold, friction and gravity would conspire to keep it still. What rules could govern this behaviour? Marzin turned it into a research project, the results of which he will present on 20 March at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver, Colorado. His work is different from the origami-like folds some physicists study, which are permanent. “What we’re dealing with here is what I call a soft or smooth fold. And it is just a competition between gravity and elasticity,” says Marzin. One way to observe this competition is to stick part of a pancake to a tabletop, let the other end hang over the edge and measure how much it sags. Marzin worked out that the answer can be predicted with one number, dubbed the elasto-gravity length, which combines the material’s density, its stiffness and the force of gravity. He suspected that this number would also govern the behaviour of flexible materials in other situations, and in a computer model this turned out to be the case. To check his simulations in the real world, Marzin experimented with plastic discs, store-bought tortillas and, of course, crêpes. He started out making the latter himself, but scientifically they weren’t fit for purpose. Physicists discover the secret to perfect cacio e pepe pasta “I didn’t control the thickness well,” he says. “So I asked my mom to perform the experiments over in France. I asked her to buy the callipers and rulers and a bunch of crêpes from a commercial brand. Those were probably made by a machine, [so] that guarantees a good uniform thickness. And she did it really correctly.” Marzin’s experiments confirmed that all aspects of crêpe-folding depend on the elasto-gravity length. For instance, it governs how much of the area of a sheet that’s folded will go into the part that loops over. This determines if there will be enough flat area left for another fold. His equations correctly predict that a crêpe 26 centimetres in diameter and 0.9 millimetres thick can be folded up to four times, whereas a 1.5-mm-thick tortilla of the same size, with an elasto-gravity length 3.4 times as large, will allow only two folds. “This length captures all t he physics underneath,” Marzin says.

I have kept quiet all morning, safest way today.

And true to a lot of people.

Bit about a small kitchen here.

Right. Memory must be failing, maybe he discussed a wet system to reduce slump, but did not bother in the end.

Down here, when the weather is good, quite a lot. Usually up country folk that think it is normal Cornish behaviour to sit out and drink a bottle of fine wine. Truth is we prefer dark, damp and windy high street doorways with a shot of heroin. Why the pace of life is so much slower here, no (expletive deleted)er can be bothered.

Most are now flooded. The water has to be managed to reduce the contamination risk. Not a case of close the mine and walk away. At the place I work I thought I had hit a wall early in the morning. Then realised I was a few feet from it. Had a look around and the ground was leaking water. During the day, a 40m strip of tarmac got distorted and more water started coming out. It eventually went up the slope to, what looks like an old vent shaft. Millions of litres of water have come out of it, into the stream. 104 years since it closed. Going to cost £200k (ish) to put right. We really should not be mining for energy when cheaper alternatives are now available. Shafted.mp4

Tungsten mines are nothing new down here, but may give a good proxy as to how long it takes to start mining again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemerdon_Mine Six years and not much has happened.

Was a decade ago. Not saying I am certain, just seem to remember it being mentioned at the time. Easy way to find out is to pull a fill hole plug out and see. Sometimes it is quicker just to try things out than constantly speculate.

Why I typed I seem to remember that Jeremy's place was a wet system, he had no problems when he cut a hole for his A/C unit.

Some of this blown cellulose (chopped newspaper) has a binder in it (blown in wet). I would think that would be almost impossible to suck out. But look on the bright side the heat capacity will go up. Some say that is a good thing (I disagree).

Wasn't there a company offering to put servers into people's houses, the letting them harvest the excess thermal energy. Maybe be it is time for us all to start questioning how much, behind the scenes, technology we really need. I suspect that there is not really that much added value from a lot of services.

Mentioned this a while back about these system won't be that effective. Very few left now, and it is illegal, was a problem 15 years ago, but most meters are changed every 20 years.

Can we get our kW, kWh, MWh and so forth correct. It looks so much better. I use the dictionary on my phone to make it easy.

And it has still not happened apart from some small scale tests plants. It has been around over 30 years.

He is your man, brilliant paper pusher. I saw him kill 3 men with a (expletive deleted)ing pencil.

China gets a lot of coal from Australia. About 85 million tonnes. Which, fascinatingly has increased by 50% since 2023. Did they know something.

I can, by doing a reckless 27 MPH.

Yes. But by what, can you suggest a product?

@SimonD @Nickfromwales I have seen similar poor installed wiring. What is the best way around this? Can a flexible sheath be used? How would the ends be terminated around the existing wires?

Can't we use the sea to cool them. It would be nice to go for a dip, without a rubber suit on. I saw something about tokens/watt the other day. ChatGPT uses about 340 MWh/day for a billion queries. I am not sure if that is good or bad. It is about 10 times a standard Google search.

I wonder what generation technology would come out on top, if we passed legislation that said anything can be built anywhere. I doubt it would be thermal or nuclear.

Just like all the companies mining tin in Cornwall.

The British Geological Society has online maps of borehole locations. See if any are near you, hunt the property owner down and ask a few questions.

Do it. Then let the government (expletive deleted) up the database.