June 3, 2025
52: grand kugel, rex, rat basketball, as the world turns pendulum, man in a box, homes, liberty or death, murals, milk bottle building, marshall carries the veggies, have you seen this man?
Richmond - Day 1
I've been looking forward to hanging out in Richmond for a few days. It's as full of historical significance as Savannah and St. Augustine, so let's see what this town of 230,000 people has to offer us.
My first stop is the Science Museum of Virginia. You may recall my visit to the JSC Space Center where I videoed the 6-ton ball which was held up by water pressure equivalent to that coming out of a water hose. It's called a kugel, and today we're looking at The Grand Kugel. To be clear, this is NOT the Grand Kegel; it's the Grand Kugel. The Grand Kegel is something entirely different, although it would be very interesting to see that as well.
The Grand Kugel, at 29 tons, is the largest in the world, outweighing the massive ball we saw in Florida by 23 tons. Because of the equal pressure, the massive ball can be turned in any direction.
The sphere has to be perfectly round to work and, in fact, the original developed a slight crack which resulted in the ball simply sitting, unmoving, in its cradle, and had to be replaced.
The 29-ton sphere isn't hard to move, you just have to start slowly. It reminded me a lot of riding my bike. It's so heavy, you can't just mash on the pedals and start sprinting, but once you get going it's easy to continue picking up speed.
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I thought I'd catch a basketball game while I'm in Richmond but, this being put together by me, requires a bit of quirk, so this game of hoops is a bit different.
Inside the Science Museum at 1:30 every day, there's a game of rat basketball. I had visions of people sitting around with cigars and fistfuls of cash, their neck veins swollen as they scream for their team, but apparently Junior High Students aren't allowed to smoke. Or even gamble. I guess that means no fistfights, either.
Regardless, I showed up at the appointed time and wasn't disappointed. According to the woman doing the demonstration, it takes about 4-6 months to train a rat to dunk the basketball. They start by socializing the rats, getting them accustomed to being around humans. After that, they place a treat beneath the basketball inside a small ring. The rat has to pick up the ball to get to the treat, and each time they do the trainer presses a clicker - this helps the rat associate the sound with the treat.
The next step involves placing the rat on a platform at the same level as the hoop. It picks up the ball and eventually, usually by happenstance, will drop the ball through the hole in the platform and into the hoop - thus resulting in a treat. Once they've learned to drop it in the hoop, the platform is gradually lowered, about once every week or so, until the rat has to lift the ball up to place it in the hoop.
As it turns out, there aren't two teams of five; it's just one-on-one, which is still okay. Otherwise, it would get a bit crowded and confusing. Unfortunately, only one rat that had been trained up because her partner didn't pass the socialization part.
The rats they use are Norwegian females. They socialize better, and I'm guessing that New York rats would just say "Fuck You!" then, after stabbing the trainer in the heart, steal the treat. They also use only females because, like humans, male rats have testosterone, and the games would be continuously interrupted by chest bumping and yelling, "You want a piece of me?!?! Bring it! Come on! Bring it!!"
Since there was only one rat shooting hoops today, I decided to find a different one and post a video that has two rats competing. This, apparently, is the RBA Finals.
Grab some popcorn and a beer: Championship Game
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On the way out of the museum I stopped at the Foucault pendulum. I vaguely remembered reading about it in high school and only had a vague concept so I refreshed my memory:
Basically, it's a very long string with a heavy ball at the bottom. Once it's set in motion, the pendulum keeps swinging in a straight line. As the pendulum swings in the same direction, the Earth rotates underneath it. This makes it look like the pendulum's swing is slowly turning, but really it's the ground beneath it that’s moving. A Foucault pendulum is direct, physical proof that the Earth rotates. Once an hour, the ball knocks over a pin.
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Eleven years before the start of the Civil War, Henry came up with the idea to mail himself to Philadelphia in order to escape from his owner and the slave states. Because it would really suck to have the box “Returned to Sender” he coordinated his escape with a couple of men, James C. A. Smith (a free black man) and Samuel A. Smith (a sympathetic white shoemaker and no relation to the former).
In order to get out of work that day he burned his hand with sulfuric acid, in one section all the way to the bone. Once inside the box, he had a small portion of water and a few biscuits, with a single hole cut for air. The box was nailed shut, then tied with straps, after which he spent the next 27 hours inside.
The most incredible fact to me is the size of the box: 3 feet by 2.67 feet by 2 feet (0.91 m by 0.81 m by 0.61 m). Not huge, and not something I'd want to stay in for very long.
His scheme worked, and he remained free for the duration of his life, developing a magic act which he sometimes used as a metaphor for freedom and escape. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (which required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the slave-owner, and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate) he moved to England where he remained for 25 years.
Although undoubtedly heroic, he received some criticism for a couple of reasons: (1) Frederick Douglass questioned his decision to reveal the details of his escape, believing that publicizing it jeopardized the chances of other people being able to use similar tactics to gain their freedom. (2) In England, he married a white woman and, in spite of having the means, he refused to purchase the freedom of his first wife and children.
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John Marshall was known for his good humor and likability. He remains the longest-serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the history of the US and instrumental in strengthening the judicial branch of government.
In Albert J. Beveridge's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, he mentions how Marshall, plainly dressed as he usually was: modest, unassuming, and wearing simple clothes, was walking down a street in Richmond carrying a basket of vegetables. A young man visiting the city saw him and, assuming he was a servant or errand boy, called out and asked Marshall to carry his own basket home for him. Marshall was amused and agreed without correcting the young man, and carried the basket all the way to the man's lodging.
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