The first jungle gym was meant to hack kids’ brains
Well before the first climbing frame was patented as “jungle gym”, mathematician Charles Hinton thought they might be able to teach kids four-dimensional thinking. ■ Thanks to the Winnetka Historical Society! More from them: https://www.winnetkahistory.org/gazette/j-is-for-jungle-gym/
Original patents referenced:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1471465A/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1488244A/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1488245A/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1488246A/
Also referenced is “Winnetka: The history and significance of an educational experiment”, by Washburne and Marland.
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This feels like a video I’d have made years ago! Just me, a GoPro, and an Interesting Thing. (And speaking of interesting things: I’ve got a podcast about interesting questions! You can listen for free here: https://lateralcast.com )
Wait how did you send this 11 days ago-
@turtlelazers Turns out Tom Scott is the next “Doctor” candidate!
@turtlelazers he uploads the videos days in advance and then sets a release date/time
@ChrisI do the same 🙂
The simple videos are often the best! I wouldn’t mind more like this 😁
I find it strangely appropriate that a ‘toy’ developed for schools came from the desire to educate children.
Nothing strange about that imo
I find it strangely appropriate that “farts” being released out of asses come from the digestive system having gas inside of it
And then it quickly became a competitive sport for adults
I.e. parkour tag
I find it strangely appropriate to write a reply in similar form
Wait how are you looking at this to find it strange? I’m actually curious now xD
So in summary, a pioneer in studying the fourth dimension, let his kids play in three dimensions and gave his marriage a second dimension?
Say what you will, he definitely wasn’t one dimensional
@Ben’s average fan You have a point.
@Mitch1998 it plane to see that you all are gentleman
@Rasputin Tzar What is left is to turn to the imaginary.
I’m impressed it stayed in active use for that long. There’s something quaint about what some might consider a historical artifact continuing to be used for its intended purpose
But don’t you know? Any child that uses that WILL DIE INSTANTLY!
@Alacritous I’m outside your house with a jungle gym, come out
@Alacritouscan confirm, I’m the person who is in charge of clearing all the bodies from my local park’s jungle gym, the moment a child touches it they do indeed, as you say, instantaneously die.
@AlacritousI’m unironically curious about how many injuries (or deaths) were attributed to this specific climbing frame. Surely at least one(?), considering it was in use for over 90 years…
@Garwinium as one of the kids who died from the jungle gym, i can confirm if you touch it you die
Never thought I’d hear Tom talk about a child “ragdolling down to the floor” but here we are.
One for the memes
oh… is this a gaming only term? I’m so used to it can’t even tell
@AfonsodelCB I think it may have originated as slang in gaming. maybe
Ragdolling down the fourth-dimensional plinko
You clearly don’t know Tom well if you didn’t expect him getting to that at some point.
Tom comes across enough weird things, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to find out how Aliens (or their perceived existence) caused some kind of weird interesting factoid nobody’d have thought about.
I love how Tom not only switches between the different UK/US terms “climbing frame” and “jungle gym”, but also between the pronunciations of “patent”
He pronounces the noun /ˈpeɪtənt/ and the verb /ˈpætənt/. No irregularities here.
@키다리 헹님 I probably couldn’t keep up with such a subtle use of English.
@키다리 헹님 that’s true, he’s consistent in that way, but I meant that conventionally, patent (both the noun and verb) are pronounced with [eɪ] in British English and [æ] in American English, rather than with one sound for the noun and the other for the verb.
@Dan Lyle source?
Up until today, I never knew “Jungle gym” meant climbing frame. I figured it had to be more elaborate
I agree that the original Jungle Gyms are designed sub-optimally for safety, but I think the modern “spiderweb” climbing structures are darn near perfect. Sadly, I don’t see them in playgrounds nearly as often as I wish, but when I do they make me smile. Climbing around on those giant pyramid-shaped rope structures was always a highlight of my playground trips as a kid. I think climbing structures are a fantastic way for kids to learn muscle coordination and to conquer their fears of heights in a safe environment.
There was one in my elementary school!
Here in France I often see pyramid rope structures in park playgrounds, never in schools though.
The old metal ones were the best. If you got hurt on one of those, you got smarter and climbed back up.
I had one in my town growing up. Made of rope fixed by metal fixings. Went up real high but because of its structure it made it very hard to fall off
Spiderweb rope structures on playgrounds are very common in Germany, at least where I live.
I love the idea that since everything was inherently dangerous in the 1920’s, the selling point at the time was always “this is marginally less dangerous than it could be”
I mean, compared to, say, climbing a random tree, this thing *is* much safer.
Not _safe_ so much as…less likely to kill you.
I miss how tolerant society used to be to minor injuries.
Now, thanks to lawyers, we’re metaphorically bubble-wrapping children.
@MonkeyJedi99 That’s probably more to do with parents.
@MonkeyJedi99 Would you like to visit asbestos land?
I’m intrigued by the notion of using VR to give kids an insight into non-euclidian geometry.
or enhanced nightmares
The youtuber @CodeParade has developed a VR game called “Hyperbolica” that explores hyperbolic and spherical geometry
@Semechki for Putin i think that tech will be reserved for our impoverished/homeless brothers and sisters.
I could foresee a program by which private corporations pay small sums to homeless/poor folks for ad-space in their dreams.
As with any method of social control, it could easily be weaponized by the systems of entrenched power- for instance, a sheriff and public prosecutor of a large city, running an anti-homeless, “tough on crime” campaign could partner with these private companies to develop programming of an extremely disturbing, unsettling, psychologically destabilizing sort- so as to increase the rate of mental crises and crimes within the targeted population.
Non-euclidean geometry is just anything that isn’t flat, a *Ball* is non-euclidean, it’s hardly some kind of complex thing that’s hard to understand.
@GelasinThey probably mean non-Euclidean space.
To be fair, there are a number of people who developed extraordinary skills – including amazing insights into Maths – after hitting their head hard. And while that might not be the sequence of events Hinton sought to provoke, it could’ve worked.
Emmett Brown, for example.
is this “number” zero?
@doofusno
Do you have any source besides fiction or your own imagination
ah yes, -brain damage- *stimulating neural plasticiy*