What is this thing? [Strange grid ball]

[Amateur Barbarian]

I found this today in a university salvage yard, while photographing abandoned buildings. I can't figure out what it is, but it looks like it cost a zillion dollars and is just sitting in the mud and the snow now, next to dismantled aerial towers and what looks like a dismantled metal sculpture.

My first thought is that it's some kind of microwave-frequency device - the stub pipe and so forth look like waveguides I've seen and worked with. OTOH, it seems to be built to handle pressure - or maybe its segmented construction is to allow very fine interior machining.

Any ideas?

Strange Grid Ball

[DrFidelius]

I don't know, but I need one now.

[Joey P]

I have no idea what it is, but someone spent a long time bolting all those sections together.

I would guess that it was a prototype for something. All those small sections could (I assume) be made fairly cheaply* and some grad students could spend a day bolting them all together.

*For example, an entire row, all the way around, could be made from one mold.

[KermitTheFrig]

Death Star from a civilization of very, very tiny creatures.

[Colibri]

Edited title to better indicate subject.

[Leo Bloom]

Originally Posted by KermitTheFrig

Death Star from a civilization of very, very tiny creatures.

Concur.

[Joey P]

Originally Posted by KermitTheFrig

Death Star from a civilization of very, very tiny creatures.

That's all we need...another Chipmunks reboot.

[Canadjun]

Does it glow in the dark and make spooky noises?

[KermitTheFrig]

"That's not a disco ball, it's a space station. . ."

[Leo Bloom]

Six ninjas to one so far. OP's patience thinning....

[tellyworth]

Was it near a university? How big is it?

It could be something like a bubble chamber. Probably not exactly that, but along those lines.

[AndrewL]

Whatever it is, I doubt it was designed to hold pressure. It seems to be bolted together from hundreds of little pieces. Each joint between pieces is a place for whatever the contents are to leak out, there's no reason you'd use something impossible to seal properly like this instead of an off-the-shelf pressure tank. The waveguide idea might be correct, that wouldn't need to hold pressure. It also occurs to me that it might be a mold for casting something. You could fill it with something (cement? molten plastic?) and then unbolt the little pieces to disassemble the mold afterwards. Even then, I'd wonder why it would have to be so many pieces, when a few larger pieces should work just as well.

[Amateur Barbarian]

Originally Posted by tellyworth

Was it near a university? How big is it?

It's in a university salvage yard, along with all kinds of "stored" hardware in and out of various buildings.

I'd guess it's about three feet in diameter. Maybe a tad bigger.

I am not sure if it's sitting on an open face of some kind; I neither wanted to mess with it nor was sure I could move it anyway. I had to slog across fifty feet of slushy muck to get this close and was not about to set my camera down anywhere there.

[Mangetout]

The pipes attached to it are similarly modular. It looks like it's a prototype of some process designed to make any kind of vessel or conduit from parts made on a very small scale - like a proof of concept for a portable machine designed to manufacture containers or habitats of any size at destination.

Then again, maybe it's just meant to be a vacuum vessel - still a lot of joints, but they would tend to close under compression.

It does superficially resemble some reactor vessels I've seen (on paper) - for example:
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/...eactor-design/

[ZenBeam]

I'd think it would be for holding a vacuum, rather than holding high pressure. Maybe for doing experiments with plasma. Its interior could have received a final plating after being assembled, to improve its impermeability.

[Tangent]

Could it be a sculpture? You said there appears to be a dismantled sculpture nearby. Maybe this is one, too.

[Joey P]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

Even then, I'd wonder why it would have to be so many pieces, when a few larger pieces should work just as well.

In addition to what I said above about possibly being cheap to manufacture, it's also modular and the port holes could easily be moved anywhere within the same row that they're currently in. The pipe(s) could also easily be turned or twisted easily enough.

[Joey P]

Originally Posted by Tangent

Could it be a sculpture? You said there appears to be a dismantled sculpture nearby. Maybe this is one, too.

It's very post-apocalypse/dystopian isn't it.

[Chronos]

I don't know what it is, but I do know how to find out. It almost certainly came from the physics department originally, and even if the original user has died or moved on, he almost certainly has collaborators, former grad students, or labmates still around who would know what it is. Call up (or e-mail) the physics department and ask.

[Joey P]

I just noticed that around the center, there's a row of bolts facing inward. Something is or was bolted to the inside. The go up towards the edges as well.

[Amateur Barbarian]

Originally Posted by Tangent

Could it be a sculpture? You said there appears to be a dismantled sculpture nearby. Maybe this is one, too.

Seems unlikely. This has a very industrial/sci/tech feel to it. The sculpture is quite evidently one of those swoopy-bits-of-metal things by a half-talented grant artist ca. 1980 that probably stood in a quad somewhere until people realized it was full of dead pigeons and the artist had long since gone to jail for spousal abuse.

[stuyguy]

Simple... robot gerbil Habitrail!

[Amateur Barbarian]

Originally Posted by Chronos

I don't know what it is, but I do know how to find out. It almost certainly came from the physics department originally, and even if the original user has died or moved on, he almost certainly has collaborators, former grad students, or labmates still around who would know what it is. Call up (or e-mail) the physics department and ask.

I'm not affiliated with the U and at this moment, don't care enough to spend time running it down - I am just photographing a large complex of abandoned buildings adjacent to the main campus and keep finding weird things like this.

I didn't think of a vacuum chamber - that makes sense from the construction. But a lot of high-frequency comm gear uses evacuated chambers and waveguides, too.

If I go back on a better day and the ground isn't so sloppy and there's no maintenance crew around, I might try to roll it over and see if there is an opening or port on the bottom, and take some shots through the small portholes to see what the interior looks like.

Well, hell, whatever it is, I can see it from space. It's quite clear on recent Google Earth images, back to 2009, and I think I can see it in a blurry 2006 shot.

[Ulfreida]

I showed the photo to someone who works at a particle physics lab, who looked at the photo and said, 'that looks like the kind of shit I build at work all time. Could be anything. Never seen anything like it."

So, there ya go. Don't bother to thank me.

[jnglmassiv]

Originally Posted by Joey P

I just noticed that around the center, there's a row of bolts facing inward. Something is or was bolted to the inside. The go up towards the edges as well.

You're right and I noticed something else. The top (pole) looks funny and there are spokes. If it were meant as a vacuum chamber, wouldn't it be easier and more effective to have all the majority of the grid squares the same shape and size? Instead, they get larger closer to the equator.

We really need to figure out what this thing is.

[Amateur Barbarian]

Okay, no thanks to you.

I worked with some ancilliary equipment for the National Ignition Facility project, and the main ignition sphere looked a lot like this - but a helluva lot bigger.

Since it looks like the thing has been here for at least 6-7 years, I don't know if anyone in the physics department would even remember it.

[beowulff]

Judging by the color of the metal, it may be made of some exotic alloy (like titanium), which might be hard to machine, and could explain why it's made from little sections.

[wolfman]

Originally Posted by NitroPress

I'd guess it's about three feet in diameter. Maybe a tad bigger.

Three feet? so each grid is maybe 1.5-2 inches? Wow my assumed scale was way off.

Although looking at it again now,noticing the bricks in the background, makes it unlikely to be the 30ish feet I had assumed unless that university builds its buildings pyramid-style with 50 ton blocks.

[Chronos]

If it were meant as a vacuum chamber, wouldn't it be easier and more effective to have all the majority of the grid squares the same shape and size?

How would one manage that?

[ducati]

This is the housing for an older style turbo encabulator.
I remember my dad working on them when we lived in Detroit. Running down faults could take 2 people all day long.

[jnglmassiv]

Originally Posted by Chronos

How would one manage that?

Like a soccer ball.

[AndrewL]

Originally Posted by Chronos

How would one manage that?

You can't, with squares. You could however greatly simplify the number of different shapes you need if you used a geodesic pattern instead of a grid, tiling the sphere with pentagons and hexagons, or differently shaped triangles. It seems to me that the sphere would have been stronger and easier to make if built that way.

This thing's really puzzling me. It's built in a really structurally impractical way, and IMHO isn't strong enough to hold a vacuum - and when vacuum chambers are off-the-shelf commercial products, why would you bother? If the goal was modularity, a geodesic patterning would work a lot better - this design has a lot of differently-shaped pieces in its surface, so you're not gaining much by making it modular.

[TBG]

Holy crap, it's a prototype of the time sphere used to send Frank Parker back in time 7 days!

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

You can't, with squares. You could however greatly simplify the number of different shapes you need if you used a geodesic pattern instead of a grid, tiling the sphere with pentagons and hexagons, or differently shaped triangles. It seems to me that the sphere would have been stronger and easier to make if built that way.

This thing's really puzzling me. It's built in a really structurally impractical way, and IMHO isn't strong enough to hold a vacuum - and when vacuum chambers are off-the-shelf commercial products, why would you bother? If the goal was modularity, a geodesic patterning would work a lot better - this design has a lot of differently-shaped pieces in its surface, so you're not gaining much by making it modular.

It has the look of something made within constraints of engineering equipment scale and capability.

It's composed of multiples of only a couple of dozen different parts - each of the parts is small enough to have been cast and machined in an amateur-scale workshop - I suspect the sections may have been deliberately made small so as to be able to ignore curvature for the joint flanges - and a large number of small parts allows for greater 'wiggle room' during assembly (although that's also a risk).
Machining the joint angles on geodesic sections would be more difficult to get exactly right than with this design..
Furthermore (although there's no way to guess if this is relevant) repositioning of ports and openings is easier and more flexible with this design than it would be with a geodesic sphere made from larger sections.

[Leo Bloom]

Originally Posted by ducati

This is the housing for an older style turbo encabulator.
I remember my dad working on them when we lived in Detroit. Running down faults could take 2 people all day long.

Double

We should all watch that clip. By force if necessary.

[Mangetout]

BTW, I want one too.

[panache45]

Simple. Someone was trying to recreate John Galt's motor that ran on static electricity . . . also abandoned as useless. I knew this would happen someday.

[AaronX]

Originally Posted by Ulfreida

I showed the photo to someone who works at a particle physics lab, who looked at the photo and said, 'that looks like the kind of shit I build at work all time. Could be anything. Never seen anything like it."

So, there ya go. Don't bother to thank me.

The first and last sentences don't match.

[Joey P]

Originally Posted by AaronX

The first and last sentences don't match.

I read that as showing someone something made out of Legos or Construx or showing an engineer something made out of gears and motors and them saying the same thing. They've seen those items before, they've worked with them, they've built similar things, but that specific item...never seen one like it, could be anything.

It's like back when I was in college working towards my math major and someone would show me some random math equation they found in a book (novel) or in a movie and ask me what it means and I would say "well, without knowing what any of the variables mean, it could be a formula for anything".

[Ulfreida]

Originally Posted by Joey P

I read that as showing someone something made out of Legos or Construx or showing an engineer something made out of gears and motors and them saying the same thing. They've seen those items before, they've worked with them, they've built similar things, but that specific item...never seen one like it, could be anything.

....

This. I think what he meant was, "yep, that's very much like the crazy unrecognizable gizmos I make at work, for all sorts of experiments, each object singular and rarely made again."

[Polar Iceman]

Originally Posted by Ulfreida

This. I think what he meant was, "yep, that's very much like the crazy unrecognizable gizmos I make at work, for all sorts of experiments, each object singular and rarely made again."

Most likely it meant: "I got a government research grant, and I had to make it look like I did something with it."

[Nars Glinley]

It's a death ray from sometime in the early part of the last century.

[Ulfreida]

Originally Posted by Polar Iceman

Most likely it meant: "I got a government research grant, and I had to make it look like I did something with it."

Probably not. The way it works is that several labs on our planet are all furiously making the same unbelievably expensive prototype and the best one gets to go to CERN to party with the particles while the others get thrown out into the snow and their makers wail and gnash their teeth in the outer darkness. As I understand it (I was a lit major).

Maybe it was an art project.

[Leo Bloom]

Originally Posted by Ulfreida

....As I understand it (I was a lit major)....

It's fun to look at "them" and try to guess what they think about all day when you have no clue.

I mean, it's not fair. They can read Moby Dick. Most of them.

[Tripler]

I know exactly what it is, and have been looking for that damn thing for three years. Which school did you eventually find it at? I'll run over with the pickup truck in the morning (or at least get on the road). PM me, please.

Tripler
Yeah, it was . . . well, I'll tell you later after I get it back.

[Bill Door]

By Grabthar's Hammer, you've found a beryllium sphere! Actually, it could be a movie prop. We'd feel pretty silly spending a couple of days figuring out the function of a piece of set dressing.

[Mangetout]

I wondered if it could be a movie prop, but it looks too well made - it's been abandoned outdoors for a while in all weathers, and yet it still looks in good condition.

Unless it was a really important prop, something like this would be made from carved foam, fibre glass and papier mache - and would not look as nice as this after years of neglect.

[Leaffan]

I can't stop looking at the picture and trying to figure what this thing is. And why it's made out of a whole bunch of individual pieces instead of just a few pieces welded together.


(Scratch, scratch....)

[hibernicus]

It reminds me of something I saw in one of the "Sixty Symbols" videos (I can't remember which one). It was on display outdoors in a university courtyard (somewhere in Europe?), and had once been full of liquid and used for some very historic particle physics experiment. The thing in the video was much larger.

Sorry for the completely unhelpful post.

[Chronos]

hibernicus, are you thinking of something like this? That's a neutrino detector, and the individual segments are photomultiplier tubes. While I can see the superficial resemblance, it's only superficial, and doesn't get us any closer to figuring out what this thing is.

EDIT: While the pictures on that page are nice, don't pay any attention to the text. I've noticed several errors in it.