Month: February 2025

Exploring the Science and History of Superglue Through Personal Experience | February 03 2025, 21:11

Two and a half years ago, I printed this phone holder on an SLA printer, a holder of my own design. And then my cat broke it with its paw. I started to glue it together with superglue, and realized that this plastic does not bond very well (but it still bonded after sanding). I began to investigate why, and found a lot of interesting information about superglue.

How does superglue work? Inside the tube, it remains liquid and consists of molecules of ethyl cyanoacrylate monomers. When the glue is applied to a surface, it fills the pores and cracks, which must be present for the glue to work—hence the importance of roughly sanding the surface. The polymerization reaction begins due to contact with water (including moisture in the air). Therefore, you should not wash off the glue with water, as it will set even faster. Acetone can be used—unless the glue is in the eyes. And it does get into the eyes, often because it is packaged in a container that resembles eye drops. The molecules begin to connect with each other, forming long polymeric chains, transforming from a liquid to a solid state.

Thanks to rapid polymerization, the glue sets in 10–30 seconds.

The glue also poorly bonds hydrophobic surfaces, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, Teflon. They lack free electrons for the glue to interact with and do not absorb moisture, which is necessary to initiate the reaction.

Impacts and shearing—superglue works excellently under tension, but is very brittle under impacts and shearing. This is its weak spot.

– Cyanoacrylate was discovered accidentally by the photo company Eastman Kodak (specifically by Harry Coover), who was trying to create a transparent plastic for gun sights.

– Unlike most plastics, which deteriorate after being recycled, superglue can be heated to 210°C and decomposed back into monomers. These monomers can then be reassembled to create a new, durable material. This allows for the recycling of plastic without loss of quality.

– The properties of the glue caught the interest of the US Army, particularly during the height of the Vietnam War. Transportation of the wounded took just minutes, but many soldiers died from uncontrollable bleeding. Therefore, in 1966, the US Army sent a special surgical brigade to South Vietnam, armed with aerosol sprays of cyanoacrylate. Although this method was used in a limited number of cases, out of 30 documented cases of using the glue to stop bleeding, it was successful in 26. A safer surgical glue was invented in 1998.

And the green sphere at the bottom is also an interesting object, I also printed it. It is a spherical section of a gyroid. A gyroid is a continuous (without self-intersections) infinitely repeating structure in three dimensions without any reflection symmetries. It is, incidentally, the only such structure known to science. Overall, it’s a way to create elements with minimum weight and maximum strength. Inside, essentially, it consists of sinusoids along three coordinates.

Exploring Dissonance: Ligeti’s Influence in Kubrick’s Films | February 03 2025, 00:32

Today, I was reading about dissonances and decided to see if there are any compositions where dissonances are deliberately used as the main material. And I stumbled upon György Ligeti’s Atmosphères.

Listen, it’s very unusual and hardly resembles music at all. He used something called micropolyphony, creating dense webs of chromatic notes moving at different speeds and at various distances from each other.

If you feel like you don’t understand such music and don’t find this assembly of sounds beautiful, imagine instead of an orchestra playing it with solemn faces, a Stanley Kubrick film, for example. Suddenly, everything falls into place.

About a week ago, when I watched The Shining, the first thing I texted a friend was, “Notice that there’s no music in the film,” to which he replied that there is, but it’s so well made and integrated that you don’t notice it. Actually, The Shining has a very cool soundtrack, very well-selected.

So, specifically, this composition Atmosphères (as well as parts of Lux Aeterna, Requiem, and Aventures) was used by Kubrick in his 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another piece, Lontano, was used in The Shining. And Musica ricercata was used in Eyes Wide Shut. By the way, Musica ricercata is quite good; I’ll drop a link in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCNzwdLwA8g

Exploring Classics: Reflecting on Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and Kubrick’s “The Shining” | February 02 2025, 00:12

I’ve closed another gestalt with the iconic Hitchcock noir—watched the movie “Vertigo” (Vertigo) by Alfred Hitchcock from 1958.

Initially, this film did not inspire much enthusiasm among either viewers or critics. It didn’t become the director’s highest-grossing or most famous film and at the Oscars, it only received two nominations in technical categories—for best sound and best art direction. However, over time its influence and significance greatly increased, and the film itself gained a multitude of interpretations—from Freudian to postmodern. Eventually, it sort of came to be considered the best film of all time and the best detective movie.

Here, Hitchcock flips expectations by killing the main heroine in the first half of the movie and the detective reveal is not at the end, but in the middle—in Madeleine’s letter. The producers argued with Hitchcock over this, but he insisted: the audience needs to know more than Scottie. It’s necessary to create suspense.

Last week, I finally got around to watching Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980). Turns out, I hadn’t watched it back then either. So, I’m catching up!

If, like me, you’ve missed out on either of these two—make sure you find the time!

John Falter’s Illustrative Mastery and the Art of Magazine Covers | February 01 2025, 20:44

John Falter’s father once told his son that he would never become an artist until he published a cover for The Saturday Evening Post. John Falter did it 122 times.

For me, the difference between an illustration and a full-fledged painting is like the difference between a TV series and a film. Think about how such illustrations were created in the first half of the 20th century. Just imagine: all these works were done in just a couple of weeks, maybe three. There wasn’t much more time—after all, they were illustrating current events. He would create a large drawing, around 30×40 inches, which was then photographed and converted to CMYK. The artist had to understand well what would inevitably be lost in this process and what, on the contrary, might “pop”—primarily in terms of color and contrast. There was no post-correction on a computer because computers simply didn’t exist. In short, working as a magazine illustrator was a unique profession.

And these weren’t just illustrations for stories—they were also illustrations as stories. An artist can convey a lot through details, the style of the drawing—essentially, through what’s “between the lines.” If you look closely, his paintings are full of such messages.

Similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes” section, you can find all 143 (unlike Facebook, which forgets—or rather, ignores—almost half of them).