are dice standardized? are they warpable?

[buzzard]

Myth. If the glass from a couple hundred years ago had flowed that much, glass from ancient Egypt or Hellenic Greece would all be puddles. And it isn't. Modern telescopy has very, very small error tolerances, and the flow of glass in mirrors and lenses would be noticed. It doesn't happen.

As Majere said, it is not a myth. Glass is an amorphous solid. It does have a measurable viscosity. It's just a damned high viscosity.

buzzard

 

[Caliber]

Myth AND not Myth. Hows that for muddling the question.

Actually glass does flow, but very slowly. The old glass in warehouses and old homes is NOT an example of glass flowing.

Go here for some details. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_120.html

 

[Harlock]

From the link: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physi...lass/glass.html provided by Mercule, and also the one that I found several days ago when I was investigating mineral hardness which is what inspired this thread by alsih2o (I'm presuming).

There is no clear answer to the question "Is glass solid or liquid?". In terms of molecular dynamics and thermodynamics it is possible to justify various different views that it is a highly viscous liquid, an amorphous solid, or simply that glass is another state of matter which is neither liquid nor solid. The difference is semantic. In terms of its material properties we can do little better. There is no clear definition of the distinction between solids and highly viscous liquids. All such phases or states of matter are idealisations of real material properties. Nevertheless, from a more common sense point of view, glass should be considered a solid since it is rigid according to every day experience. The use of the term "supercooled liquid" to describe glass still persists, but is considered by many to be an unfortunate misnomer that should be avoided. In any case, claims that glass panes in old windows have deformed due to glass flow have never been substantiated. Examples of Roman glassware and calculations based on measurements of glass visco-properties indicate that these claims cannot be true. The observed features are more easily explained as a result of the imperfect methods used to make glass window panes before the float glass process was invented.

It's one of those things that's hard to classify. As far as dice becoming biased, mine have. It is important to note that I store mine (for sometimes weeks at a time) in an interior closet with no ventilation right under the trapdoor to my attic in a house built in 1956 with poor insulation (and I have the nearly 300 dollar electric bills to prove it) in what is classified as a succulent Desert in West Texas. My dice have grown biased, and I want to move to a more random material for my dice. I hoped Dwarven Stones would be the answer, but someone mentioned on my earlier thread that the Stones were not entirely uniform and therefore not suited to my purpose. Suck is life. For now I can either start storing my dice in the freezer or rotating my dice bag during the summer months when it is irrepressibly hot. :/ Yeah, I know, I know, the amount of bias distributed through something like a d20 is hardly noticeable, but I'll be damned if I haven't noticed a trend. No, not after a thousand solid rolls, but certainly after hundreds and yes, those all were at one time, not over the course of a game session. Yeah, I'm that pathetic.

 

[Hardhead]

I know that dice *can* be miscast. I have a d29 that's very bad. Upon close examination, you can see it's not really even. It's almost impossible to roll a 1 or a 20 on it, actually. (I once claimed it was impossible, until a friend of mine took it and started rolling over and over and over one gaming session when he wasn't doing anything else. Eventually, he did indeed get a 20).

Though it's a very obvious case of bad die-casting, I can easily see a die being cast that's somewhere between my Quasimodo polyhedron and a regular one that has a measurable bias, but you can't really see it's malformation with the naked eye.


- Z a c h

 

[Umbran]

Glass is an amorphous solid. It does have a measurable viscosity. It's just a damned high viscosity.

Being an amorphous solid does not imply it has a meaningful viscosity. Having some similarities to a super-cooled fluid does not mean it has all the properties of such.

Water has a viscosity of about 0.01 poise. Molasses has a viscosity of around 500 poise. As far as I'm aware, room-temperature glass does not have a measurable viscosity. Estimates of it's "viscosity" sit around 10^20 (that's "ten to the twentyeth power") poise.

Quite simply, that's in a region where the notion of "fluid flow" simply isn't applicable. The notion of "viscosity" is not meaningful at that point. For all intents and purposes, the stuff does not flow. The American Journal of Physics went so far to say as it would take longer than the the universe has existed for flow to account for what is seen in windows.

The stuff may not be crystalline, but it is about as solid as anything else. Sorry - it is myth.

 

[alsih2o]

if i might step back in on this one...

i have been told by knowledgable glassblowers that the method of blowing a cylinder and cutting and flattening it is what leads to the "sag" look in old windows.

 

[Cedric]

Over an extensive period of time, if left in the exact same position, dice will in fact settle.

Just like glass, plastic is mostly solid at room temperature. No observational data would ever reveal it to be anything other than solid, unless you apply that observation over a long period of time.

Example: In very, very old churches, with stained glass windows, the stained glass can be seen to have "flowed" over the years. It's becoming a problem in some churches as hundreds of years old stained glass is getting thick at the bottom and thin at the top.

With dice, I would think they would have to set in the same position for at least 5-10 years for this to be a factor...

Cedric

 

[Saeviomagy]

I know that dice *can* be miscast. I have a d29 that's very bad. Upon close examination, you can see it's not really even. It's almost impossible to roll a 1 or a 20 on it, actually. (I once claimed it was impossible, until a friend of mine took it and started rolling over and over and over one gaming session when he wasn't doing anything else. Eventually, he did indeed get a 20).

Though it's a very obvious case of bad die-casting, I can easily see a die being cast that's somewhere between my Quasimodo polyhedron and a regular one that has a measurable bias, but you can't really see it's malformation with the naked eye.


- Z a c h

No wonder it's biased - a d29 can't be made in a form which has identical sides, and always lands with one such side unmistakeably face up!

Or did you mean a d20?

Pleased to see you read the post immediately before yours Cedric...

 

[DaveStebbins]

It's one of those things that's hard to classify. As far as dice becoming biased, mine have. It is important to note that I store mine (for sometimes weeks at a time) in an interior closet with no ventilation right under the trapdoor to my attic in a house built in 1956 with poor insulation (and I have the nearly 300 dollar electric bills to prove it) in what is classified as a succulent Desert in West Texas. My dice have grown biased, and I want to move to a more random material for my dice. I hoped Dwarven Stones would be the answer, but someone mentioned on my earlier thread that the Stones were not entirely uniform and therefore not suited to my purpose. Suck is life. For now I can either start storing my dice in the freezer or rotating my dice bag during the summer months when it is irrepressibly hot. :/ Yeah, I know, I know, the amount of bias distributed through something like a d20 is hardly noticeable, but I'll be damned if I haven't noticed a trend. No, not after a thousand solid rolls, but certainly after hundreds and yes, those all were at one time, not over the course of a game session. Yeah, I'm that pathetic.

Two things, neither might apply in this case, but I'll post them anyway.

After looking at the melting temps of the most commonly used plastic compounds (haven't checked deeply enough to see what they actually make dice out of, several gaming sites, like Chessex, are blocked here at work), I believe the temps would have to be reaching well over 150F and probably closer to 200F before this would be a problem.

Also, I think "hundreds" of rolls might not be enough to check for bias. I have seen (or seem to remember seeing) indications that for a d20 it might take over a thousand rolls to statistically show bias.

If I think of it after I get home today, I'll check on both items more thoroughly.

-Dave

 

[Harlock]

Also, I think "hundreds" of rolls might not be enough to check for bias. I have seen (or seem to remember seeing) indications that for a d20 it might take over a thousand rolls to statistically show bias.

Right, which is why I mentioned not the thousand times, but hundreds. I realize that thousands of rolls are needed but I don't have that much patience. I'm looking for a quick fix.