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December 4, 2015 05:28 am PST

This nickel could save your life

JeffersonNickel1942-SNGCMS672183-4

If theres one thing I just love, its tiny objects that do amazing things. Ohand I also love great big objects that do amazing things. What Im about to share with you is a perfect combination of both and just knowing about it makes me feel like Im connected to Her Majestys Secret Service.

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Believe it or not, a company called Shomer-techas created a compass out ofwait for it a nickel! Its the first item in a collection that will be invaluable on secret missions Ill never go on!

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If you loop a piece of thread around the groove of the coin and suspend it freely, the heads side will always point to magnetic north. It doesnt matter what angle you start at or where you move in space. Jeffersons head will always show you the way!

[embed]https://youtu.be/UR1TIXkBjwU[/embed]

Sure, this tiny thing is amazing but its even more impressive when you consider that it partners with the worlds largest object. By the largest object, I mean of course, the Earth itself.

In grade school, we learned that the Earth has a magnetic field that attracts the north side of a compass towards the North pole. But something slipped my mind since magnets 101.

magnetic-poles

I plum forgot that the North Pole would have to have a magnetic pull of south to make the nickel face it because of the opposites rule.

northsouthpole

Heres a tongue twister for you:

The north pole has a south pole pull while the south pole has a north pole pull.

Nicely done!

When you use the nickel compass, North is the only information needed since the other cardinal directions can be derived from it.

Since we were kids, we would call out the 4 directions as North, East, South, West and it rolls off the tongue. But in proto-indo-european language, East was the first and most important direction because thats where the sun rose from.

East derives from an early word for dawn or facing the rising sun.

South derived from region of the sun. If you look at the sun at midday and you are facing south

West derived from evening twilight or the setting sun

North derived from an ancient term that means from the left of the rising sun.

I think that just about settles it. All directions actually started out as Easts bitches! Take that, other cardinal directions!

But that was then and this is now. Im going to reel things back to the present where north is still in charge - even though the very idea of north can be confusing. This is because there are actually 2 north poles:

1) The true north pole is the axis around which the Earth spins

2) The magnetic north pole is where the dangling nickel's face points to

globe

Compasses only give a general top of the Earth direction and almost never points to the geographic north pole at all. In fact, the two north poles are about 1200 km apart from one another.

GLOBEANGLE

The angle created from true north, to your compass location and then to magnetic north is called magnetic declination. When looking at the diagram, its easy to see that magnetic declination changes depending on where you are in the world.

The ridiculous map below will show you how the US is broken up into different values of magnetic declination.

declination

If you lived, for example, in Los Angeles and wanted to be absolutely accurate with your nickel head compass, this map would tell you that you are in the +13 magnetic deflection zone.

The crazy thing is that each year the location of magnetic north changes position. What that means is that these numbers and lines change as well, making this 2010 map completely worthless. For those of you wanting up to date magnetic deflection statistics, just visit this geomagnetism website. Once there, you can simply type in an address and you'll be good to go.

Or, maybe you'd rather juststay indoors with your nickel. Thats what Ive been doing and I havent gotten lost once.

If youre wondering why this piece of tech was created in the first place. Heres your answer from our friends at Shomer-Tech:

This unique new covert compass was inspired by the various escape compasses developed during WWII and issued to Allied airmen and commandos as part of their escape & evasion kits. Unlike standard military compasses, due to specialized requirements, escape compasses were mostly very small and of rudimentary design, had minimal markings, and provided gross magnetic north indication.

pigeon

WWII spy pigeons like this one had built in compasses but would have been way too cumbersome for soldiers to carry around in their pockets. The nickel compass would have been a much better option huh? I thought so too.

But be careful with your new compass because its so well made, youll likely spend it by mistake and then what? Youll probably have to rely on the crappy GPS on your iPhone and nobody wants that.

While I cant say the Soomer-Tec nickel has saved my life, I can say its one of my favorite new toys and if I didnt already have one, Id be getting one now.

Its sort of a gateway secret agent gadget and I think its safe to say what my next one will be.

Thunderball_GBadv2


Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3VoSOIXS8VI/this-nickel-could-save-your-li.html

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