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Why pens have rubbery grips

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Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#31

Post by marzell »

clwg wrote: post #30
katastic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>triangular slip-on sleeves separately As someone who grew up in the 90's, I can almost guarantee you would get the crap beat out of them for walking into school with something like that. Thank goodness they're integrated into the pen now!

I was a teenager throughout the 90's and was a bit of a bully from time to time, and I don't think bullying has changed much since then. If it wasn't a pen, it was the shoes, t-shirt, or the way someone pronounced a word. Bullies are bullies, they will pick up on any thing they can and exploit it to belittle another person.

My parents once bought me Mighty Ducks shoes from Payless, without consulting me, when I was in around the 7th grade; suddenly everyone at my school was a bully.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#32

Post by tgb »

daxorid wrote: post #11
yazan94 wrote: post #2

TLDR from the article: > Because the keratin softens when it is hydrated by the moisture secreted from the sweat pores, it requires many seconds for the contact area to increase to the value reached almost instantaneously with a soft material, such as a rubber.

This is interesting, yes, but it seems immediately ... odd to me. Do we use rubber to manufacture tires because the frictional coefficient between rubber and asphalt is established rapidly due to asphalt sweating? No, it's because the frictional coefficient is already rather high to begin with. Is this not the case with rubber-keratin as well? Why involve sweat when static friction is sufficiently explanatory?

The role of sweat appears to be to make the keratin in the finger softer and allowing more of it to contact the hard surface. This is unnecessary when contacting a rubber surface since the rubber surface is already soft. I.e. rubber makes the sweating unnecessary and hence works even against hard surfaces like non-sweaty keratin or asphalt.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#33

Post by Splendor »

schwap wrote: post #17
katastic wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>triangular slip-on sleeves separately As someone who grew up in the 90's, I can almost guarantee you would get the crap beat out of them for walking into school with something like that. Thank goodness they're integrated into the pen now!

As someone who also grew up in the 90s, all the cool kids had these things.

Same here. Everyone was envious of the kids with nice writing implements...triangle grips included.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#34

Post by tomaskafka »

That's why I dislike iPhone - 5S was last grippable version, since then it's slippery material PLUS slippery shape.

Miss my HTC M7 - it had a few milimeters larger back than front, and well defined edge, it was the last phone that you could hold really comfortably and safely even without the case.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#35

Post by vaishaksuresh »

zaroth wrote: post #23
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the paper and I'm not saying the analysis isn't compelling. I'm saying it is obvious and does not need a paper to be explained.

The process by which human fingers gives rise to stable contacts with smooth, hard objects is surprisingly slow. Using high-resolution imaging, we found that, when pressed against glass, the actual contact made by finger pad ridges evolved over time following a first-order kinetics relationship. This evolution was the result of a two-stage coalescence process of microscopic junctions made between the keratin of the s…

Many words to say "Moist fingers grips smooth,hard objects better than dry finger". Again, I'm not saying it is useless or uninteresting or that the science is simple, I'm saying you can see the behavior without knowing the science and still understand it.

Then again, what is interesting to one person might not be equally interesting another.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#36

Post by vaishaksuresh »

lolsal wrote: post #24
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the paper and I'm not saying the analysis isn't compelling. I'm saying it is obvious and does not need a paper to be explained.

You can't cite "it's obvious" in other research papers though. Now that this research is published, it can easily be cited as a fact/finding/proof.

Fair enough.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#37

Post by johnday »

jaclaz wrote: post #16

It seems to me that research have learned titling from modern journalism. It is the actual research title and it is clickbaity. >Without a large true contact area made by our hands, it would be nearly impossible to lift a glass or to hold onto a handrail in a transport vehicle. As a side note, the reason why usually you don't drop a glass when gripping it with your hand is largely due -besides friction - to the fact…

Or even just an upside down glass in the comfort of your own house.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#38

Post by Gracana »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #35
zaroth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process by which human fingers gives rise to stable contacts with smooth, hard objects is surprisingly slow. Using high-resolution imaging, we found that, when pressed against glass, the actual contact made by finger pad ridges evolved over time following a first-order kinetics relationship. This evolution was the result of a two-stage coalescence process of microscopic junctions made between the keratin of the s…

Many words to say "Moist fingers grips smooth,hard objects better than dry finger". Again, I'm not saying it is useless or uninteresting or that the science is simple, I'm saying you can see the behavior without knowing the science and still understand it. Then again, what is interesting to one person might not be equally interesting another.

But it's not just a moist finger, initial moisture doesn't matter much. It's the whole process that starts when you touch an object. That doesn't seem obvious.

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#39

Post by wlesieutre »

tomaskafka wrote: post #34

That's why I dislike iPhone - 5S was last grippable version, since then it's slippery material PLUS slippery shape. Miss my HTC M7 - it had a few milimeters larger back than front, and well defined edge, it was the last phone that you could hold really comfortably and safely even without the case.

iPhone SE is just as grippable as the 5S, it's the same design but 2.5 years newer. Unless something changed in the aluminum finish, but it feels fine to me. (Don't have a 5S for comparison)

Re: Why pens have rubbery grips

#40

Post by dTal »

hawski wrote: post #15

Are there any smartphones that have a rubber coating? Something akin to the Thinkpad lid coating. I use a rubbery case, buy that's something else. That got me to thinking. Why doesn't Lenovo cash on Thinkpad brand with a smartphone line that would be branded as such. It could use the same rubber coating and maybe titanium skeleton or something. Maybe I'm just not aware that they indeed have such a thing.

The Xperia Mini Pro and the Xperia X10 Mini Pro (shit naming scheme) both have rubberised backs, very like the Thinkpad lid covering (but grippier). It works very well at making the phone satisfying and comfortable to hold, but the durability sucks and it eventually peels off under regular use.
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