Subject: Re: (urth) Father Inire's Mirrors and Wolfe Physics
From: Josh Geller 
Date: 19 Aug 2003 10:26:57 -0700

On Tue, 2003-08-19 at 09:04, James Wynn wrote:
> Josh said:
>> Everyone knows that Leonardo Da Vinci built a mirror thingie like
>> this, right? Or at least drew it in a notebook.

> *I* was not aware of this. I googled for it and could only find references
> to to da Vinci's "mirror-image script", how he recommended that painters use
> a mirror to check their work, and an invention to grind mirrors. It would
> not be surprising for Wolfe to have an interest in da Vinci since he was one
> of the fathers of modern engineering.

Among other things.

> So please elaborate, Josh!

I've seen the drawing. It's in a book somewhere around here. 

> On this and on the subject of how well Wolfe describes technical concepts in
> layman's terms, I have picked up a rumor that Father Inire's mirrors operate
> by quantum tunneling. Is this true and, if so, can any physics grads
> critique how well he justifies this in the famous "fish" explanation"?

I don't know about any of this. I do know that time is really 
interesting, and has a number of poorly documented features.

I'll be building one of these things as soon as I can afford to.

Ask me then.












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