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Stream Mermaid

viewing water flowing over rounded stones is visually beautiful. make something out of beautiful glass that causes the smooth flowing water to look like a beautiful curved mermaid
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Watching water at a smooth stream is often beautiful. Mermaids are beautiful. You could simulate the 3d appearance of a mermaid with an underwater shape, placed on the stream bed, made of glass that causes the smooth undulations of water to look like a mermaid.
beanangel, Nov 05 2016

Maybe need to have lots of little ridges, so it can be seen http://thumbs4.picc...-Mermaid-Bottle.jpg
[not_morrison_rm, Nov 06 2016]


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Annotation:







       Glass beads strung together > motion used to generate electricity > night-time glinty mermaid, Nice.
wjt, Nov 05 2016
  

       I like this illusion.
If the shape were made from clear water filled bladders then the surface visual could be changed at will hydraulically.
  

       <<throw up sounds>>
JesusHChrist, Nov 06 2016
  

       I like this beanie, and I'll even clean up the puke.
blissmiss, Nov 06 2016
  

       <dons elbow-length rubber gloves to help..tch..I memoed Jutta about this cheap carpet, make it nylon I said, but no one listens>   

       Anyway, plugging clear glass mermaid into google gets you lots of pics of Starbucks glass mugs...it all means something..
not_morrison_rm, Nov 06 2016
  

       I think this would be better as a piece of ninja-art, made by rearranging pebbles in the stream-bed to produce the necessary features on the surface.   

       It would be fiendishly difficult, because the water surface will not simply mimic the topography of the pebbles - each pebble will cause swirls and dips at (and I do mean "at") the surface. For the same reason, a simple mermaid shape would actually not produce a mermaid-shaped surface. Some advanced software would be needed to deduce the underwater pattern necessary to produce a given shape at the surface.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 07 2016
  

       The fact that the shape of the stream bed doesn't match the shape of the resulting water sculpture is the thing that makes this especially interesting.   

       Sure you could try to design this using computer simulation, but I think the end results might not be satisfactory. I doubt all shapes are even possible, and when the computer fails to make the desired shape, the actual result might not be that great. What you'd really want is a skilled artist experimenting with a waterproof putty to create a sculpture that is visually pleasing. Once designed, it could be cast in glass or other durable medium.   

       This could be in a fountain with the flow regulated to optimize the shape, but if this could be placed in a stream or drainage ditch in which the water level changes over time, sometimes the water sculpture would be there and other times it wouldn't be. For bonus points, if multiple sculptures were placed close to each other, different ones could be active for different flow rates.
scad mientist, Nov 07 2016
  

       If one had a stream bed comprised of small rectangular prisms one end that one could raise and lower, it would be easier to change the topography of the stream bed, looking for the one that made the mermaid.   

       In fact this would be a very cool science museum exhibit with a recirculating stream and a stream bed that visitors could manipulate.
bungston, Nov 08 2016
  

       sp. composed. But yes.
pertinax, Nov 09 2016
  

       From OED: comprised. b. To constitute, make up, compose.   

       1969 W. Hooper in C. S. Lewis Sel. Lit. Ess. p. xix, These essays together with those contained in this volume comprise the total of C. S. Lewis's essays on literature.   

       1969 N. Perrin Dr. Bowdler's Legacy (1970) i. 20 As to who comprised this new reading public, Jeffrey..guessed in 1812 that there were 20,000 upper-class readers in Great Britain.   

       c. pass. To be composed of, to consist of.   

       1970 Nature 27 June 1206/2 Internally, the chloroplast is comprised of a system of flattened membrane sacs.   

         

       Would "compose" also work in this circumstance? Yes. But "comprise" does not get out as much lately, and I like to give it a chance.
bungston, Nov 09 2016
  

       "Comprise" = "contain" (easy to remember - a PRISoner is contained in a PRISon).   

       "Compose" = "make up" (easy to remember - a composer makes things up).   

       So:   

       An orange comprises several segments.
An orange contains several segments.
  

       Several segments compose an orange.
Several segments make up an orange.
  

       You can also flip the word order with "compose/make up":
"An orange is composed of several segments.
"An orange is made up of several segments.
  

       The example quoted from Nature (//Internally, the chloroplast is comprised of a system of flattened membrane sacs.//) is simply wrong. The chloroplast either comprises a system of..., or is composed of a system of...
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 09 2016
  

       It's a bit too flowery naff for me.
xenzag, Nov 09 2016
  

       Naff! Had to look it up.
bungston, Nov 09 2016
  

       Future technology, murmuring the waves, of what ever medium/field, to produce 'magic'. Beautiful, artistic and definitely scientific.
wjt, Nov 10 2016
  

       //being up your own arse.//.... better than being up your arse which probably doubles as a storage centre for the Mexican cleaners Donald Trump likes to keep hidden from public view. Ha
xenzag, Nov 10 2016
  


 

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