I thought of another possibility:
Some complex bit of kit needs to be installed inside the chamber, and may require tinkering from any angle of access.
(although even so, I think that could still be achieved without making the individual panels so small).
Come on, it can’t be for fluid containment or exclusion with all those joints.
a giant dryer ball for the nuclear plasma dept?
I’m thinking an experimental form of targeting chamber for laser fusion experiments, similar to the National Ignition Facility.
Pah ha ha I’ve been following this thread and reading the updates for a couple days, and hearing each poster say “Whut t’hell is that thing?” “Ahhh, I know what that is…”
A physicist friend to whom I just showed the photo says “I recently saw some of the inside of the core of the national ignition facility. This looks like a very low key prototype of the sphere there.”
I suggested as much, near the beginning of the thread. I worked on some of the support equipment for NIF and had plenty of drawings and photos of the unit at hand. I am checking with some of the likeliest department heads and senior professors to see if I can get a lead.
Whatever it is, don’t taunt it.
This is going to turn into the next mystery rebus or “14 k of g in a f p d”, isn’t it…
Wow! It’s an Interociter…paging doctor Meacham!
It’s beautiful is what it is.
Other than that, I got nothin’.
Just make certain that it hasn’t ‘unscrewed’ when you approach it.
[Ulla!]
True, those are a lot of joints - an unreasonably, seemingly unnecessarily large number of them… but those things attached to it are pipes. Pipes are usually for fluids…
So unless it’s an art piece (and I confess, it is beautiful), what else is there?
Nope. I’ve seen Luneberg lenses (and wrote about them recently). Despite that patent drawing, they look nothing like the picture linked by the OP.
it’s not an Interociter, either. Didn’t you see MST3K the Movie?
Or microwaves.
Yeah, or hamsters. I dunno. This one is a puzzle.
Also: why is there snow on the ground, but not on the sphere?
Leonard Rossiter:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Leonard_Rossitor_as_Reggie_Perrin.jpg
I’ve seen him! In many movies and TV shows, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, where he was a Russian.
But he won’t allow you to contact Metaluna, even if you turn him 3/8 to the right.
And I’m pretty certain he’d make a terrible concrete mold.
Because the snow fell 3 weeks ago and has mostly melted except for a few ground drifts.