The mysterious pentagon… explained?

by | Sunday, November 14, 2010

Around 2 weeks ago I posted a note about a “pentagon” I saw in some boiling lentils in my kitchen. There have been some interesting responses to this… but before I get to that, here is the original image, if you missed the original posting:

Interestingly enough, a few readers questioned the very presence of the pentagon! They saw paws and hands and soccer balls … rather than a simple geometric shape. My first response was, “you must be kidding me, how can you NOT see a pentagon?” But as I thought about it a bit more, I began to “see” their point of view. I think, now, that I was too quick to latch onto the “pentagon” rather than consider other shapes. Whether this is a cultural matter (as some people suggested) or an individual quirk (as some others did), I am not sure.

That said, the fact that some kind of a 5-sided, pointed figure was visible was not in doubt. Whether a pentagon was the best way to label it maybe a fair question to ask. The “fiveness” of it, however, is not really under question here.

So… what caused this “five-based” shape?  To cut a long story short, those of you who predicted this pattern had something to do with the heat source below were right, pretty much. I must add though that the lentils had NOT been stirred, and that this pattern emerged because they had not been stirred. Anyway, here is a photo of the heat source. I tried to take this picture from approximately the same location as the first one…

The first thing you notice are the five prongs that hold the pot up. And these five prongs align quite perfectly with the lines of bubbles that come inwards from the other edge of the vessel. The five prongs that hold the pot up prevent direct heat from hitting the base of the vessel and I suppose lead to less “boiling” activity in these areas, making them ideas spots for the bubbles to collect.

As to why  we get the lines between these prongs (what I called the pentagon) is still not clear to me. My suspicion is that the convection currents that move through the water move the bubbles as they form to points where there is less “bubbling.” That explains the lines coming from the side towards the center – but does not fully, at least to my mind, explain the lines that join these prongs together – the pentagon that I first noticed.

Some more experimentation may be in order… I will keep you posted as and when opportunity arises for me to study this further 🙂

Thanks for all those of you who chose to comment.

Topics related to this post: Design | Fun | Personal | Photography | Puzzles | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Aesthetics and science education: Beauty at Work podcast

Aesthetics and science education: Beauty at Work podcast

Beauty at Work is a podcast that "explores how beauty shapes our lives and the work that we do" hosted by Brandon Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America. In its first season the focus is on beauty in science. As part of...

New media, new genres

There is an interesting article in today's NYTimes titled Content and its discontents by Virginia Heffernan. In this article she makes the argument the new digital, online media require new ways of representing information, new ways of thinking about how ideas are...

Jugaad, India-genous creativity

Jugaad is a Hindi word which does not have a straight forward equivalent in English. I guess the closest phrase I would say would be "situational or indigenous creativity," the ability to make do creatively with the tools/resources one has at hand. On Jugadu.com I...

Jean Baker

Jean BakerColleague and Friend In MemoriamSo runs my dream, but what am I?An infant crying in the nightAn infant crying for the lightAnd with no language but a cry. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Pi Day

Pi Day

3.14 looked in a mirror and guess what he saw? Happy Pi(e) day.

Speed of travel of information

I had written earlier about how the rate of change of technology is speeding up, i.e. technologies are changing at an ever faster rate. Related to this is something I just came across today (on Kottke.org). Kottle links to a chart that provides a historical look at...

EPET in the Spotlight!

The current issue of TechTrends (Volume 57, Issue 3, March 2013) is a special spotlight issue, and the spotlight this time around is on the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology Programs at Michigan State University! This special spotlight issue was edited...

Facebook Username

I now have a facebook username! Hah! Check out http://www.facebook.com/punyamishra/

Milap 2008

The Indian Cultural Society of greater Lansing (ICS) held its annual cultural program Milap 2008 this past Saturday. It was a great program with traditional and Bollywood dances, songs, and other performances. My daughter Shreya's dance troup, performed a Kathak dance...

0 Comments

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Bisnis Online Apa Yang Cocok Bagi Pelajar? | Bisnis Wanita Indonesia Terkini dan Terbaik - [...] The mysterious pentagon… explained? [...]

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *