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[–] 42 points 10 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 26 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    It looks a lot like the inverse of flow visualization with smoke or liquid. I guess that's not coincidence?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Not a Physicist, so guessing a little. Both seem turbulent/chaotic systems that rely on the previous state. Each part of a dynamic flow/bike trajectory are small fractals of the initial instability/configuration. A bike is designed to steer straight - counter-steering - while moving, so it is unstable around the line/curve. On the other hand, fluid tend to become unstable at the slightest disturbance and if pushed forward, goes into a oscillating state that breaks up into eddies. I would guess that the bike's forward instability gets exponentially higher at lower speeds, and the bike trajectory lines is not pushed forward as with moving fluid above, so the bike shows another turbulent/chaotic fractal system with a different starting configuration. ..I think ;-)

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    If this is a Rorschach test, I'm seeing Victorian pubes

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    it's unexpectedly symmetrical, although i guess the "harmonic" of the bicycle explains that.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Symmetrical up/down? Or do you mean almost periodic right to left?

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    well since it's a top-down diagram i guess you can say up/down. but right/left is probably more accurate.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    I don't know. I expect it to be symmetrical in that direction. Why should it behave different tilting left than right? It being periodic is much more unexpected to me. It makes sense but, without really thinking about it, I would have expected it to be more chaotic.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    It's entirely expected. The anomalies are going to be on the furthest left and right; Bikes that fall down right away or ones that stay up longest. The average would be the densest area - bikes that performed "okay." The symmetry is also an expected function with the only options for the wheel to turn being left or right.

    If these were not standardized releases, meaning, the energy used to push the bike varied from one to the next - say, because a person was pushing them and not a machine with a defined load - then it explains the short vs. long distances, however that would be normalized even with a predefined load and look similar to this... just bigger distances.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Bikes aren't symmetrical though, with the drive-train to one side, so you'd think there'd be a more noticeable bias in one direction. Guess it's a very minor effect.

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I dug up the actual paper (Cook, 2004) and it turns out the bicycle was symmetrical... and, in fact, entirely virtual.

    The virtual bicycle used for simulation

    It's a plot of a computer simulation, rather than records from a real-world physical experiment.

    A bicycle is composed of four rigid bodies: the two wheels, the frame, the front fork (the steering column). Each adjacent pair of parts is connected with a joint that allows rotation along a defined axis, and the wheels are connected to the ground by requiring that their lowest point must have zero height and no horizontal motion (no sliding).

    So the simulation has a lot of simplifications from reality, and the picture tells us more about the simulation model than it tells us about the real world. It is a pretty picture, though.

    Here's the paper reference:

    Cook, M. 2004. It takes two neurons to ride a bicycle.

    (I couldn't get it from the Cook's Caltech site, but I found a copy elsewhere.)

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    The interesting thing in this situation is that it curved at all.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    The fork is bend so the bike automatically counter-steers against gravity. As long as the speed is high and the wheels are spinning (centripetal/symmetry forces), it will tend to steer in a straight line. So the spinning wheel and the bend, makes the bike run upright. The bend has a name, but I forgot..

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    I want to repost this but make the title

    Paths of 800 unsuspecting bicyclists being pushed until they fall over

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Why does this look like my hair

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Neat. How well controlled was the push—did they push them or did a machine?

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    That is quite obviously my ear hair.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    The upper half has more circular tracks. Wonder if Coriolis forces caused the minor differences.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    A personal art project from the ward.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    800 of the same bicycle

    if it was 800 different, you'd get a lot more noise

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    But how was the bike pushed? Was it pushed by an imperfect human, or by some sort of contraption?

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    So it's worthless? Not sure how to value virtual simulations of real world physical behaviour when it's used to show something cool.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Only because it is simulated? Pushing the same bike 800 times with the same force mechanically and measuring it doesn't seem to me to net any more applicable knowledge.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    It's pretty impressive that they pushed the bicycleIt's pretty impressive that they pushed the bicycle to the right 800 times and half the times it went left instantly.

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