Category: Possible inventions

Today’s invention is a pair of nail clippers with a serrated edge.

The positions of the serrations can be selected by the user so that a subtle pattern can be created in anyone’s fingernails.

I estimate that it would be possible to have about five such notches cut into each nail without these being obvious to a casual observer.

The result would be a code, representing 2^(10*5) different messages -which would allow identification of an individual.

Such a code, whilst crude, could be carried by anyone -perhaps even without their knowledge.

It would also have a clearly limited lifetime and might, if necessary, be destroyed in a few, nailbiting seconds.

Today’s invention is a way to enable very small vessels to travel around the world.

A large ship would be built, probably in the shape of a catamaran. This would have a central, raised section linking the two hulls beneath which small craft could travel, under their own steam, or driven by steering the ship so that the prevailing wind passed between the hulls.

Floating booms between the hulls at the front and rear of the ship would effectively isolate the boats from breaking waves and damagingly high oceanic winds.

This configuration would allow people to undertake global-distance voyages without the danger and fatigue which exposed trips would experience.

It might even allow long-distance swimmers the same protection whilst training, for example.

So it seems that ‘Millennials,’ ie young folk, believe that, although cash makes them much more aware of their spending habits, it’s physically dirty.

This makes them dependent on credit card use, even when it’s not convenient (and subject to ridiculous surcharges).

Today’s invention is therefore a cash machine or (ATM) which takes in dirty notes (as eg car parking machines do now) and replaces them with crisp new ones.

Not only would this encourage people to avoid debt, it would also allay fears about notes being impregnated with cocaine, fecal matter or, heaven forbid, terrorists’ cyanide salts.

I don’t believe the stories I read on the breathier biomimicry sites that bullet trains can reduce their fuel consumption by 15% just by having a beak-shaped nose fitted.

It seems, however, that Japanese engineers wanted to reduce the noise made by high speed trains on emerging from tunnels and they used the geometry of a diving bird’s beak to achieve a large noise reduction.

Today’s invention is therefore a way to suppress the noise from a firearm, based on this dynamically-similar regime.

Bullets would be made axially asymmetric, as indicated.

Although they would be less stable in flight, despite the usual rifling, and therefore only effective at lower range, when used with a conventional suppressor, I’d expect a decrease in report of a few extra dB.

Today’s invention is a flying train. Well, actually it’s a plane with a fuselage in two parts: a cigar-shaped inner (blue) and a normal airliner’s rear section (grey) into which the front section fits.

On landing, the blue inner would engage with an electric railway undercarriage and take passengers and their luggage (or urgent freight) straight to some metropolitan centre.

The rear section could then be refitted to another passenger module when it arrives, at bullet train speed, at the airport.

Passengers would thus enjoy uninterrupted high-speed transport from city to city, allowing this hybrid transport system to fill the gap between trains and planes over medium-length routes eg in Europe.

When the wheels of a train press on their rails the local stresses are transient but enormous.

This is apparently a high enough pressure to cause plastic, ie permanent, cumulative deformation as each wheel passes a given point.

Once a crack has been created, subsequent stress will cause it to propagate and the rail will eventually require replacement.

Today’s invention is intended to prolong the life of our hard-pressed railway lines. It takes the form of an extra electromechanical control system for a train’s suspension.

Each pair of train wheels would be capable of being raised slightly, allowing the weight of the train to be redistributed non-uniformly from instant to instant.

Positions where cracks had already occurred would be mapped so that as a train passed over, the pattern of weighting and unweighting could be rapidly altered in order to minimise the bending moment tending to open the top face of the rail, for example.

This could mean that most of the weight would be thrown onto the nearest two wheels to a crack, rather than the farther ones.

If you need to shake lots of hands, perhaps when running for office, there is a degree of carpel crushing to endure.

Today’s invention is a slip-on fake cast which prevents people from doing that insane thing of expressing their need for friendship or dominance by trying to squeeze your hand to a pulp.

The appearance alone would deter keen crushers but an internal metal stiffener makes such behaviour fruitless.

For those people who really hate secret handshakes (as I do), it would also broadcast the fact that they were simply undetectable whilst wearing this device.