ratio of word probabilities predicted from brain for arch and hammer

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arch

hammer

top 10 words in brain distribution (in article):
time state type form world century term require refer provide
top 10 words in brain distribution (in article):
animal design head size common allow form time steel shape
top 10 words in brain distribution (not in article):
plant produce light fruit drink water lamp grow species seed
top 10 words in brain distribution (not in article):
key lock switch machine needle type tube bicycle knit wire
times more probable under arch 30 20 10 6 4 2.5 1.25 1 1.25 2.5 4 6 10 20 30 times more probable under hammer
(words not in the model)
An arch'" is a structure that spans a space while supporting weight (e.g. a doorway in a stone wall). Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture, but their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures. History. Arches were known by the Mesopotamian, Urartian, Harappan, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Assyrian civilizations, but their use was infrequent and mostly confined to underground structures such as drains where the problem of lateral thrust is greatly diminished. The ancient Romans learned the arch from the Etruscans, refined it and were the first builders to tap its full potential for above ground buildings: "The Romans were the first builders in Europe, perhaps the first in the world, fully to appreciate the advantages of the arch, the vault and the dome." Throughout the Roman empire, their engineers erected arch structures such as bridges, aqueducts, and gates. They also introduced the triumphal arch as a military monument. Vaults began to be used for roofing large interior spaces such as halls and temples, a function which was also assumed by domed structures from the 1st century BC onwards. The Roman arch is semicircular, and built from an odd number of arch bricks (called "voussoirs"). An odd number of bricks is required for there to be a "capstone" or "keystone", the topmost stone in the arch. The Roman arch's shape is the simplest to build, but not the strongest. There is a tendency for the sides to bulge outwards, which must be counteracted by an added weight of masonry to push them inwards. The Romans used this type of semicircular arch freely in many of their secular structures such as aqueducts, palaces and amphitheaters. The semicircular arch was followed in Europe by the pointed Gothic arch or ogive (derived from the Islamic pointed arch in Moorish Spain), whose centreline more closely followed the forces of compression and which was therefore stronger. The semicircular arch can be flattened to make an elliptical arch as in the Ponte Santa Trinita. The parabolic and catenary arches are now known to be the theoretically strongest forms. Parabolic arches were introduced in construction by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, who admired the structural system of Gothic style, but for the buttresses, which he termed “architectural crutches”. The catenary and parabolic arches carry all horizontal thrust to the foundation and so do not need additional elements. The horseshoe arch is based on the semicircular arch, but its lower ends are extended further round the circle until they start to converge. The first examples known are carved into rock in India in the first century AD, while the first known built horseshoe arches are known from Aksum (modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea) from around the 3rd–4th century, around the same time as the earliest contemporary examples in Syria, suggesting either an Aksumite or Syrian origin for the type of arch. It was used in Spanish Visigothic architecture, Islamic architecture and mudéjar architecture, as in the Great Mosque of Damascus and in later Moorish buildings. It was used for decoration rather than for strength. Across the ocean in Mexico and Central America, Mesoamerican civilizations created various types of corbelled arches, such as with the interior tunnels in the Great Pyramid of Cholula and the many styles of corbelled arches built by the Mayan civilization. In Peru, the Inca civilization used a trapezoidal arch in their architecture. The arch is still used today in some modern structures such as bridges. Construction. An arch requires all of its elements to hold it together, raising the question of how an arch is constructed. One answer is to build a frame (historically, of wood) which exactly follows the form of the underside of the arch. This is known as a centre or centring. The voussoirs are laid on it until the arch is complete and self-supporting. For an arch higher than head height, scaffolding would in any case be required by the builders, so the scaffolding can be combined with the arch support. Occasionally arches would fall down when the frame was removed if construction or planning had been incorrect. (The A85 bridge at Dalmally, Scotland suffered this fate on its first attempt, in the 1940s). The interior and lower line or curve of an arch is known as the "intrados". Old arches sometimes need reinforcement due to decay of the keystones, known as bald arch. The gallery shows arch forms displayed in roughly the order in which they were developed. Technical aspects. The arch is significant because, in theory at least, it provides a structure which eliminates tensile stresses in spanning an open space. All the forces are resolved into compressive stresses. This is useful because several of the available building materials such as stone, cast iron and concrete can strongly resist compression but are very weak when tension, shear or torsional stress is applied to them. By using the arch configuration, significant spans can be achieved. This is because all the compressive forces hold it together in a state of equilibrium. This even applies to frictionless surfaces. However, one downside is that an arch pushes outward at the base, and this needs to be restrained in some way, either with heavy sides and friction or angled cuts into bedrock or similar. This same principle holds when the force acting on the arch is not vertical such as in spanning a doorway, but horizontal, such as in arched retaining walls or dams. Even when using concrete, where the structure may be monolithic, the principle of the arch is used so as to benefit from the concrete's strength in resisting compressive stress. Where any other form of stress is raised, it has to be resisted by carefully placed reinforcement rods or fibres. (See Arch bridge.) Other types. The Delicate Arch, a natural arch in Moab, UtahA blind arch is an arch infilled with solid construction so it cannot function as a window, door, or passageway. A dome is a three-dimensional application of the arch, rotated about the center axis. Igloos are notable vernacular structures making use of domes. Natural rock formations may also be referred to as arches. These natural arches are formed by erosion rather than being carved or constructed by man. See Arches National Park for examples. A special form of the arch is the triumphal arch, usually built to celebrate a victory in war. A famous example is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. A vault is an application of the arch extended horizontally in two dimensions; the groin vault is the intersection of two vaults. A hammer'" is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. Usual features are a handle and a head, with most of the weight in the head. The basic design is hand-operated, but there are also many mechanically operated models for heavier uses. The hammer is a basic tool of many professions, and can also be used as a weapon. By analogy, the name "'hammer'" has also been used for devices that are designed to deliver blows, e.g. in the caplock mechanism of firearms. History. The use of simple tools dates to about 2,400,000 BCE when various shaped stones were used to strike wood, bone, or other stones to break them apart and shape them. Stones attached to sticks with strips of leather or animal sinew were being used as hammers by about 30,000 BCE during the middle of the Paleolithic Stone Age. Its archeological record means it is perhaps the oldest human tool known. Designs and variations. The essential part of a hammer is the head, a compact solid mass that is able to deliver the blow to the intended target without itself deforming. The opposite side of a ball as in the ball-peen hammer and the cow hammer. Some upholstery hammers have a magnetized appendage, to pick up tacks. In the hatchet the hammer head is secondary to the cutting edge of the tool. In recent years the handles have been made of durable plastic or rubber. The hammer varies at the top, some are larger than others giving a larger surface area to hit different sized nails and such, Mechanically-powered hammers often look quite different from the hand tools, but nevertheless most of them work on the same principle. They include: In professional framing carpentry, the hammer has almost been completely replaced by the nail gun. In professional upholstery, its chief competitor is the staple gun. Hammer as a force amplifier. A hammer is basically a force amplifier that works by converting mechanical work into kinetic energy and back. In the swing that precedes each blow, a certain amount of kinetic energy gets stored in the hammer's head, equal to the length "D" of the swing times the force "f" produced by the muscles of the arm and by gravity. When the hammer strikes, the head gets stopped by an opposite force coming from the target; which is equal and opposite to the force applied by the head to the target. If the target is a hard and heavy object, or if it is resting on some sort of anvil, the head can travel only a very short distance "d" before stopping. Since the stopping force "F" times that distance must be equal to the head's kinetic energy, it follows that "F" will be much greater than the original driving force "f" roughly, by a factor "D" "d". In this way, great strength is not needed to produce a force strong enough to bend steel, or crack the hardest stone. Effect of the head's mass. The amount of energy delivered to the target by the hammer-blow is equivalent to one half the mass of the head times the square of the head's speed at the time of impact ([Formula 1]). While the energy delivered to the target increases linearly with mass, it increases geometrically with the speed (see the effect of the handle, below). High tech titanium heads are lighter and allow for longer handles, thus increasing velocity and delivering more energy with less arm fatigue than that of a steel head hammer of the same weight. As hammers must be used in many circumstances, where the position of the person using them cannot be taken for granted, trade-offs are made for the sake of practicality. In areas where one has plenty of room, a long handle with a heavy head (like a sledge hammer) can deliver the maximum amount of energy to the target. But clearly, it's unreasonable to use a sledge hammer to drive upholstery tacks. Thus, the overall design has been modified repeatedly to achieve the optimum utility in a wide variety of situations. Effect of the handle. The handle of the hammer helps in several ways. It keeps the user's hands away from the point of impact. It provides a broad area that is better-suited for gripping by the hand. Most importantly, it allows the user to maximize the speed of the head on each blow. The primary constraint on additional handle length is the lack of space in which to swing the hammer. This is why sledge hammers, largely used in open spaces, can have handles that are much longer than a standard carpenter's hammer. The second most important constraint is more subtle. Even without considering the effects of fatigue, the longer the handle, the harder it is to guide the head of the hammer to its target at full speed. Most designs are a compromise between practicality and energy efficiency. Too long a handle: the hammer is inefficient because it delivers force to the wrong place, off-target. Too short a handle: the hammer is inefficient because it doesn't deliver enough force, requiring more blows to complete a given task. Recently, modifications have also been made with respect to the effect of the hammer on the user. A titanium head has about 3% recoil and can result in greater efficiency and less fatigue when compared to a steel head with about 27% recoil. Handles made of shock-absorbing materials or varying angles attempt to make it easier for the user to continue to wield this age-old device, even as nail guns and other powered drivers encroach on its traditional field of use. War hammers. The concept of putting a handle on a weight to make it more convenient to use may well have led to the very first weapons ever invented. The club is basically a variant of a hammer. In the Middle Ages, the war hammer became popular when edged weapons could no longer easily penetrate some forms of armour. Symbolic hammers. The hammer, being one of the most used tools by "Homo sapiens", has been used very much in symbols and arms. In the Middle Ages it was used often in blacksmith guild logos, as well as in many family symbols. The most recognised symbol with a hammer in it is the Hammer and Sickle, which was the symbol of the former Soviet Union. The hammer in this symbol represents the industrial working class (and the sickle the agricultural working class). The hammer is used in some coat of arms in (former) socialist countries like East Germany. In Norse Mythology, Thor, the god of thunder and lightning, wields a hammer named Mjolnir. Many artifacts of decorative hammers have been found leading many modern practitioners of this religion to often wear reproductions as a sign of their faith.