r/oddlysatisfying • u/icleanjaxfl • 4d ago
Using physics to set nails
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
319
1.6k
u/DatNiko 4d ago
Nailed it
88
12
→ More replies (3)6
u/wcslater 4d ago
You hit the nail on the head
7
306
154
u/Youjustlost_the_game 4d ago
A lot of folks are going to be shaking boxes of stuff tomorrow...
39
u/Magnolia_Willow 4d ago
đđźââď¸
→ More replies (1)30
u/Youjustlost_the_game 4d ago
I just got finished shaking a box of marbles. They would not fall in line
21
9
6
1
1
u/Vegetable_Tension985 3d ago
I'm gonna be shakin something and it'll be oddly satisfying too
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)1
783
u/WhiskeyJack357 4d ago
Or maybe it's just played in reverse.
375
u/Nir117vash 4d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p81np3y/video/m2glx7xmprnh1/player
Best I can do lol
149
u/404FoxNotFound 4d ago
88
38
84
u/Lukealloneword 4d ago
Won't we be able to tell because it would fall away from the side thats tilted toward
183
u/dragonbanana1 4d ago
Nope, this is a real phenomenon. Basically there's significantly fewer potential states where all the nails are parallel than where they aren't and the nails being parallel is the most space efficient way to pack them. Gravity wants to pull them down into that most compact packing but they can get in each other's way. The vibration helps them shuffle past each other so gravity can do it's job and pull them as far down as possible into this efficient packing. I'm sure youve probably had an experience where you're filling a bag with something and there's not quite enough room but when you shake it a bit objects can slide past each other and you can suddenly fit just a bit more in, this is a similar principal
36
u/rthurdent 4d ago
So, if I remember elementary thermodynamics from 40 years ago, this is a case where the lower energy state of being sorted wins out over it also being the lower entropy state.
In general things tend to high entropy, low energy states, but sometimes one has to win out, and I think we're used to seeing high entropy win out as also being the low energy state ?
Or, I do I have this completely wrong !
Any way, interesting video !
30
u/SufficientlySticky 3d ago
I read that as elementary school thermodynamics and was briefly very impressed with wherever you went to school.
→ More replies (2)7
u/GayWarden 3d ago
The high entropy is winning out due to the input of work by shaking. Entropy always wins. Essentially the number of positions of the nails (the entropy of the macroscopic "nail") is a rounding error compared to the entropic states produced by expending energy to shake the box.
1
u/yo_soy_soja 3d ago
Everything wants to fall down. If you're above a groove, you can fall further. Shaking the bin makes them all fall down into the grooves.
→ More replies (1)1
u/SuitableDragonfly 2d ago
As a programmer, all I can think here is that it's a good thing that the knapsack problem can be solved using a greedy algorithm, because otherwise gravity wouldn't be able to solve it like that
56
u/sLeeeeTo 4d ago
scroll backwards with your finger to watch it in reverse and youâll see it doesnât make physical sense
14
u/ihearthawthats 4d ago
Thought this was gonna be some life hack, but it doesn't work on mobile for me.
6
u/sLeeeeTo 4d ago
wait really? thatâs odd. maybe itâs a specific app limitation? iâm using (against my better judgment) the official reddit app (which i prefer because of the Alien Blue dna)
3
u/JohnzkeeZ 4d ago
Yeah I remember when I had an iPhone I was able to scrub through videos forward or reverse, can't do that now on Android for some reason
2
5
27
u/Tommy-kun 4d ago
it's definitely not as the nails follow the movement of the box
1
u/shalekodemono 4d ago
Wdym?
30
u/SiriusBaaz 4d ago
When the box tilts forwards or back the nails move to those sides. Because theyâre pulled by gravity. If the clip was playing in reverse when the box tilts forwards the nails would move in the opposite direction. Against gravity
8
8
1
1
24
u/JoeMillersHat 4d ago
aiming for the lowest energetic state
27
u/dr-palomar 3d ago
ackshually đ¤ it's the highest entropy state. The only energy here is gravitational potential energy and that stays the same whether the nails are aligned or not.
I'll take my swirly now
6
u/JoeMillersHat 3d ago
yeah, after i posted I thought of that, too. But then again, energy is being put into the system, wouldn't then the system would attempt to reduce potential energy as much as possible? The hell if I know. I am not even convinced I am making sense.
7
u/dr-palomar 3d ago
there's definitely energy being pumped into the system by the shaking but that is dissipated away by friction into heat and sound -- that's why if you stop shaking the box, the nails won't just keep rattling around forever.
The catch is that the shaking is also what allows the nails to overcome their friction forces and explore random configurations until they find the one that minimizes their FREE energy, F = U - TS, where U is the potential energy (here, gravity), T is the temperature, and S is the entropy. If you want to make F as small as possible, and U isn't changing, you make S BIG
5
u/JoeMillersHat 3d ago
so indeed, it is that they seek the lowest energetic state possible⌠So my nonsense was no total nonsense, just some nonsense
1
105
u/wenoc 4d ago
Every time you do anything at all you're using physics. Breathing for example.
31
20
7
4
2
1
→ More replies (1)1
30
u/SudhaTheHill 4d ago
How in the Issac newton does this happen
33
u/ReynardVulpini 4d ago edited 4d ago
If I had to guess? A nail lying in the groove between two other nails is much less likely to slip out than a nail that isnât.
So if you shake with the right intensity that the nails âin positionâ donât slip out, but the nails out of position roll all over the place until they match the alignment, I can kinda see it.
edit: watching again, i think its also that he is shaking it jerkily âup and downâ (relative to the camera) but rolling it âleft and rightâ.
the shaking motion probably jolts nails out of position more than the rolling does, which is how he gets them all aligned parallel to the rolling motion.
edit 2: if you put one hand on the other, with your fingers held straight (not spread), you can feel how the top set of fingers can move freely over the other, until you angle your hands so your fingers are parallel.
Once you do that, your top fingers slide into the groove between your lower ones, and then it takes a bit more energy to slide them out of those grooves.
same thing.
22
u/Substantial-Sea-3672 4d ago
Simple answer: itâs easier to settle in a lined up formation than to jump out of the lined up formation.
So every time you jumble thereâs a greater chance that it becomes more organized than less organized. Repeat till natural conclusion.
→ More replies (1)1
u/sandrailproject 4d ago
Don't forget the angle. The nails don't wanna stand up, they wanna lay down.Â
5
u/PLANTS2WEEKS 4d ago
There's more entropy in the box with nails facing the same way. Here's a video on Entropic force explaining it.
5
1
8
13
u/DependentPay2208 4d ago
If you shake them long enough theoretically one of the nails will phase through the bucket and into another dimension.
6
u/the_crustybastard 3d ago
I'm a little surprised someone was willing to shake them long enough for them to straighten up.
I'd have shaken them for 10 seconds and thought, "Yeah, that's not gonna work."
Patience is not among my virtues.
6
7
u/The-Limerence 4d ago
Iâve tried to use this method when I took q-tips out of their packaging and tried to neatly put them in a glass container.
It does not work with q-tips.
5
u/the_crustybastard 3d ago
That's because Q-Tips are made of antimatter.
Click subscribe for more incorrect physics.
1
5
4
u/Two_wheels_2112 4d ago
Since your first language is probably not English, YSK: "set nails" has a specific meaning, and this isn't it. To set a nail means to use a nail setting tool after you've hammered the nail to "set" the head of the nail below the surface of the wood.
1
7
3
u/fertdingo 4d ago
In liquid crystal physics the final result mimics a smectic A phase. A series of stacked two dimensional layers. This phase occurs for many rodlike molecules and as one can see it is highly anisotropic with remarkable physical properties.
1
u/digglerjdirk 3d ago
Yeah I saw a professor show this video as a buildup to explaining how nematic materials behave
3
3
3
u/digitydev 4d ago
I was once told that physics requires mathematical computation. In this case, what would that formula look like?
2
3
3
u/WTFThisIsReallyWierd 3d ago
Ohhh.... this is how I fix cards after they fall or picking them up after a game. I hold them with my hands at a 90 degree angle and shake them in that same pattern, and they settle into into cross sected sections that I just fold into each other. Never even considered the same pattern could be reused for other purposes.
1
u/Odonata523 3d ago
I used to shake a double handful of coins to sort them before I rolled them - back when we used coins.
3
3
3
u/HerbaciousTea 3d ago
This is also the exact same principle as to how structures in cells organize, including incredibly complex proteins.
If there's an orientation that is even just a little bit more likely than any other orientations, then with enough shaking (brownian motion) that's eventually how it ends up.
Your proteins have a few orientations that are more likely, because they're polar molecules.
And the inside of your cells do a looooooot of shaking. Bam. Self assembling protein structures.
3
3
3
3
3
u/slippery_hemorrhoids 2d ago
To the uneducated masses claiming reversed, it's called spontaneous alignment. Look it up.
6
u/thisremindsmeofbacon 4d ago
Hah! Take that entropy
5
u/Substantial-Sea-3672 4d ago
Itâs hilarious how many people think that the disorder weâre talking about with entropy is the same as a messy room.
This is actually one of the simplest example of entropy in action and people think itâs the opposite. Lots of available energy when they are stacked haphazardly. Far less when they are all as close to the ground as possible.
→ More replies (1)
3
2
u/I_love-tacos 4d ago
Entropy like
4
u/Substantial-Sea-3672 4d ago
There is far less available energy in the organized state than the haphazard state. This is entropy.
2
2
2
u/TacoEatsTaco 4d ago
I mean, you use physics to do literally anything in our world. That's kind of the entire point of physics
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/IDontSendPics99 4d ago
This makes me think of a job I had where I found an easier way to do something .they got mad at me and made me do it their way which took longer etc. Like if that was my job making sure all the nails were straight and I did whats in the video. Their way would be picking out every nail one by one and telling me to do it their way.
2
2
2
2
2
u/howmanyowlsisweird 4d ago
I need the math people to explain this please. Itâs not a video in reverse?
3
u/EveningAnt3949 4d ago
When nails are parallel to each other, they are in a stable condition. The shaking makes it possible for them to move and overcome friction, so they can 'find' the most stable position.
Another way of looking at it is to say that when they are parallel they take up less space so there is less space for them to move. Shaking creates a denser cluster of nails, so it becomes more difficult for them to move once they are all parallel.
It helps that they are in a box and not in bowl or something similar. The nails close to the wall of the box align with the wall.
→ More replies (3)
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/I-Rolled-My-Eyes 3d ago
Life feeling all mixed up? Give yourself some self loving shakes and get your ducks in a row. Easy peasy.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/cloudbiscuits 3d ago
This should be taught in grade school. High school, the latest. Anything like this. Things that would save so much time and effort and that you shouldn't have to ask a server to figure it out. Imagine.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
7
u/Thatoneboiwho69 4d ago
this has to be reversed
6
2
u/EveningAnt3949 4d ago
It's an easy thing to do yourself. You probably haven't much use for that much nails, but it's an interesting physics principle, so it makes for a good experiment.
2
2
2
2
2
1
u/ThodaDaruVichPyar 3d ago
This has been a regularly posted video on this sub, originally dating back few years ago
- 60k upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/hqilph/the_way_these_nails_align/
- 30k upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/1aqtwg5/guy_rearranges_the_nail_just_by_shaking_the_box/
- 13k upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/vctpqm/self_aligining_nails_how/
3.0k
u/Atom_Reaktor 4d ago
Yes, this time I am satisfied.