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The Periodic Table of Tools

periodictableoftools.com

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Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#71

Post by hoosieree »

kortex wrote: post #70

As a former chemist and all-around maker, I love this and this bugs me all at once. I love the concept, but as others have pointed out, this is less a "periodic table" and more "grab bag of related things". You see these all over the place: foods, drinks, cars, etc. All table, no periodicity. Why are wrenches and drills strewn across three groups? Put the wrenches in one group, drills in the other. Impact drivers som…

Inclined planes form a column. Unguided inclined planes: knives, axes. Guided: planes, scissors. Inclined planes wrapped around cylinders: drills, screws.

Blunt objects form a column: Hammers, presses, brakes.

I agree with your categorizations involving tools that rely on heat, but I guess the problem with any such taxonomy is the next person comes along and goes "well I would do this differently, and that..."

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#72

Post by kortex »

hoosieree wrote: post #71
kortex wrote: post #70

As a former chemist and all-around maker, I love this and this bugs me all at once. I love the concept, but as others have pointed out, this is less a "periodic table" and more "grab bag of related things". You see these all over the place: foods, drinks, cars, etc. All table, no periodicity. Why are wrenches and drills strewn across three groups? Put the wrenches in one group, drills in the other. Impact drivers som…

Inclined planes form a column. Unguided inclined planes: knives, axes. Guided: planes, scissors. Inclined planes wrapped around cylinders: drills, screws. Blunt objects form a column: Hammers, presses, brakes. I agree with your categorizations involving tools that rely on heat, but I guess the problem with any such taxonomy is the next person comes along and goes "well I would do this differently, and that..."

Obviously everyone has their own classification. But TFA doesn't even distinct cutters from air pressure tools. I'd at least make a group for Fluid Workers: air compressor, water pump, hydraulic ram, hydraulic press.

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#73

Post by croisillon »

kortex wrote: post #70

As a former chemist and all-around maker, I love this and this bugs me all at once. I love the concept, but as others have pointed out, this is less a "periodic table" and more "grab bag of related things". You see these all over the place: foods, drinks, cars, etc. All table, no periodicity. Why are wrenches and drills strewn across three groups? Put the wrenches in one group, drills in the other. Impact drivers som…

we definitely need a periodic table of periodic tables

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#74

Post by oooyay »

smeej wrote: post #20

This has a great auxiliary use for those of us who don't know about all the tools, and/or don't know the names of the tools. It's going to make me sound a lot less stupid at the hardware store!

I'm chuckling a bit because I get this feeling of consternation every time I run into something that doesn't go very smoothly. For instance, learning I was using the wrong kind of hammer for roofing saved my wrist from breaking. I've been collecting woodworking and carpentry tools and teaching myself as I go. If you really want to develop some intuition for what to use and when then learn about the basics of carpentry and wood working: routing, planing, joining/jointing, sawing, drilling, gluing, sanding, and finishing. The difference between machine and hand tools often comes down to surface area and/or density (that may not be holistically correct, but it satisfies my bar for a rule of thumb).

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#75

Post by AareyBaba »

croisillon wrote: post #73
kortex wrote: post #70

As a former chemist and all-around maker, I love this and this bugs me all at once. I love the concept, but as others have pointed out, this is less a "periodic table" and more "grab bag of related things". You see these all over the place: foods, drinks, cars, etc. All table, no periodicity. Why are wrenches and drills strewn across three groups? Put the wrenches in one group, drills in the other. Impact drivers som…

we definitely need a periodic table of periodic tables

but would it contain itself ?

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#78

Post by demondemidi »

schoen wrote: post #61
demondemidi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Novelty toothpaste for nerds? One that changes color the longer you brush so that you know you've brushed sufficiently (and not just blood-red to indicate your gums are now bleeding). One that changes color based on where the calculus on your teeth accumulated, so you can target you brushing. One that does the brushing for you, just keep it in your mouth for 3 minutes and rinse. Oh lord...

> One that changes color based on where the calculus on your teeth accumulated, so you can target you brushing. This exists, although for some reason I'm not aware that it's available as part of a toothpaste. (Maybe the toothpaste foam would create false positive indications by making it seem to accumulate in places that don't actually have plaque.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosing_tablets

Blast! I was hoping readers would be too young to remember and I would get the credit. \O_O/ ... I used to get these from the dentist as kid in the 70's.

Re: The Periodic Table of Tools

#79

Post by glompers »

kortex wrote: post #76
AareyBaba wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but would it contain itself ?

Obviously. It'd be one of the tables known to Harvard. Just leave enough room for the ones to be discovered.

Every discovered table would contain items known to the state of California to be oncogenic.
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