Topic: Question about broken glass in a heart-shape

[chopin-liszt]

 :24: :24: :24:

[Pinkspoons]

There is a specific area of the brain which detects faces - which is why anything with features vaguely in a similar position to eyes and mouth is interpreted as a face. (a nose is not essential)

Aye, ostensibly a kind of evolutionary Pascal's Wager.

If we see a 'face' in the gloaming, flee assuming it's a predator, but it was only a subtle interplay of shadow, we've lost nothing.

If we see said 'face', assume it's only shadow and ignore it, but it turns out to be a predator, then we're on that day's menu.

Sadly, evolution doesn't quite keep up with the urbanised world - and we have Jesus sandwiches as a consequence.

[chopin-liszt]

The jesus sandwiches can always be flogged to the gullible and superstitious for very large sums of dosh on ebay though.....

I can understand why folk see faces - but why then, do they insist they're those of jesus (or whatever holy icon they choose) rather than the face of the beardy bloke next-door or great-aunt Nellie?
(My great-aunt Nellie looked more like a raisin than mother Theresa ever did.)

I can remember looking at a poster in a science lab once, wondering why on earth there was an image of a great lion's face up there.  :spls:
It was a stained and magnified section of the spinal cord.  :thud:

[Pinkspoons]

I would probably be more sympathetic to the cause of the supernatural food portrait if its followers claimed that the bearded man was evidence of Frank Zappa watching over us.

[Max]

Does anyone have an idea of where the original poster could get help with defining where stress fractures in a beer glass are likely to happen when dropped?  ...and to find out if that heart shape crack is a likely product of the bulge in the glass?

[chopin-liszt]

I can't say for sure, Max.
I'm not in the habit of keeping broken bits of glass if they're beyond repair.
I did have a disaster, not too long ago, when I managed to smash the bowl of one of our Alister Malcolm wine goblets in the kitchen sink, and a sort of squint heart-shaped hole appeared in it - the part which came out broke in two, leaving me with two semi-circular pieces with "straight" edges - the top part where they had originally joined became the inward pointy shape.

I reckon we'd need a physicist to explain the way the stresses would travel in the glass, and how it would shatter, but I also think we're getting close to "chaos" theory here.  

The shock waves don't "like" corners, they set up rebounds, so it will all depend on the exact angles and forces and speeds involved - including the angle(s) at which it was hit and what, if anything, was stabilising it. (ie. if it was being held). You'd need to know the exact thickness of the glass, how much variation was in it....

There's probably a PhD thesis in working it out exactly!

But common sense says the bulgey bit would affect it this way.

[Cathy B]

Interesting that the edges of the fracture look very neat, except for the little chips, which would be what you'd expect if it had been formed with a rotating bit grinding it to shape. To this untrained eye, the main heart shape doesn't look like a natural colloidal glass fracture at all - except in those chips around the edge.

It would be nice if the supernatural were a little less vague! 

[chopin-liszt]

There is nothing more extra-ordinary than nature, there is no "supernatural" - only the so-far, unexplained.

Everybody knows the odds against winning the lottery are pretty astronomical - yet there are folk who win it.

The odds against such a break in glass as this may be as astronomical (though I personally doubt that very much - because of the shape of the glass being very likely to encourage it) but that does not mean it might not happen.

The "heart-shape" is merely a shape that we have come to recognise and have attached some significant meaning to in cultural terms, but it is simply a shape. It honestly does not have any meaning apart from the one we have attached to it. As I said before - it's not even the shape of a real heart.

This event is no more significant than folk seeing faces in arrangements of stimuli which have features in common with a face.

I'm well aware that when I gaze at my Alison Kinnaird lantern that the incongruity of both the horror and the beauty sets up what is known as "cognitive dissonance" in my brain, which is what grabs my attention and stops me in my tracks.

Knowing that does not lessen the experience - in fact, it makes it even greater.  :thud:

The experience known as "deja vu" has recently been studied in labs using brain imaging - it's just a slight mis-firing of neurons so that the "been here before" bit has been accidentally stimulated.

And Doris Stokes has been conspicuous by her absence since she died.

[KevinH]

Does anyone have an idea of where the original poster could get help with defining where stress fractures in a beer glass are likely to happen when dropped?  ...and to find out if that heart shape crack is a likely product of the bulge in the glass?

I would suggest: The Society of Glass Technology

[jalmada]

I really appreciate all the responses - we're honestly looking at the responses and I will request that we be allowed to examine the glass closely and to take closeup photos of the edges and better images for you guys to look at. I'm a computer scientist myself so I understand being skeptical and all, but also take an objective view since I've had experiences that got me into this interesting field in the first place.

Personally, I think the glass story is just that, a story. The only physical evidence I have is that glass and a piece of paper telling the story of how it came to be (a legend only). My goal is to provide a reasonable explanation from a physical process and not paranormal so that we can present the evidence on it's own merits without romantic stories intervening.

I'll go ahead and see about photographing the glass close up and getting more photos for you folks!

Jon