Apparel brand ‘Under Armour’ have begun incorporating an ingenious re-imagining of the basic zipper in its clothes, created by engineer Scott Peters. Although the fastening still relies on the interlocking of two bands of metal teeth, the clasps at the bottom have received a thoughtful re-design. The motivation for Peters, he says, was watching his uncle, who suffers from myotonic dystrophy, struggle to engage the conventional clasps. The solution is the inclusion of magnets and a unique catch, so that the two halves automatically align with one another and the zipper can even be done up one handed.

Fastenings are discussed briefly in Chapter 4 of The Knowledge. Whilst the complexity of zippers will probably remain beyond the reach of a society recovering from scratch, buttons became common in medieval Europe in the mid-1300s and ushered in a true revolution in fashion. Rather than black being the new brown being the new black, with an easily reversible fastening you can fundamentally change the form of clothes. Instead of wrapped around like a toga, or having to be slipped over the top of the head like a loose-fitting tunic, easily-reversible fastenings allow clothes to be much more snug-fitting and comfortable.

What I love in particular about this zipper story is that it’s a reminder that no technology ever reaches a final design – everything is continually evolving and being updated, even the most prosaic items in life that we use without thinking, such as zippers.

Read the full story on fastcodesign.com

Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.

I took part in an event called the End of the World Cabaret in Oxford on 12th December, along with some very talented science communicators including Dr Sarah Bearchell (Facebook page: Sarah’s Adventures in Science).

Sarah does a lot of outreach work with children. She says, “We do science together. It’s immensely rewarding and often (inadvertently) hilarious.” In preparation for her set at the science cabaret, Sarah asked children “How do you think the world will end?”, and we also circulated a call for help on The Knowledge website. Here’s what Sarah says about the results of this survey. My favourite idea for the end of the world is not an  armageddon, but a Monty-Python-inspired footageddon…

“Lots of the children were worried about ebola and other diseases. A global pandemic would certainly cause of societal breakdown. However, the children also came up with other ideas, some based on actual facts, and others not…”

• “The sun will go red and the world will explode.” Girl age 11
• “The world will crumble then explode. People will die and float into space!” Boy age 7
• “Countries will be so busy fighting each other, they won’t notice the end of the world….we might turn back into apes though…” Boy age 8
• “The whole universe would be destroyed and then something new would come in its place and start again.” Girl age 9
• “An evil person will create robots and set off bombs all around the world.” Girl age 6
• “Scientists will invent highly technologically advanced robots which will find out they are smarter than the human race. Then they will destroy us.” Boy age 10
• “Someone will develop a new high-tech version of the internet but it’s so clever it builds an army and wipes out the human race.” Girl age 13

There are some great episodes of Dr Who in there, but I think the most random comment I got was from a seven year old boy who said that “The world will be destroyed by a giant FOOT!”

Dr Sarah Bearchell
Sarah’s Adventures in Science

Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.

The start-point for the thought experiment that is The Knowledge is a post-apocalyptic world where survivors must rebuild civilisation from scratch. But another way of setting that back-to-basics question is as a cheat sheet for a time traveler. If you were to go back 100, or 1,000, or 10,000 years, what crucial knowledge would you want to take with you to accelerate history as much as possible? What hints on science and technology would be relevant to different ages? This same idea is delivered very nicely in a design of time travelers’ essentials, which I believe first appeared as a t-shirt:

…and is also available as a high-res poster here. There are flaws in the execution. For example, the Wright brothers struggled with far more than just the shape of an aerofoil wing – building airframes and power sources light enough, and figuring out moveable surfaces to control the first aircraft are just as critical. And providing the chemical formula of an alternative to progesterone for birth-control pills as “C₂₀H₂₆O₂“, without any hint of the actual molecular structure or how to synthesise it, is useless. But the idea of a time travelers’ cheat sheet is a great one.

 

Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.