The Multi-threaded Cabinet

Last week, I had some trouble with my desk cabinet at work. I seemed to have inadvertently locked my top drawer. After fiddling around with the cabinet a bit, the drawer had magically opened. This behavior left me puzzled and it wasn't until today that I figured it out. The cabinet is multi-threaded!

The cabinet is small, black with two drawers. Open either drawer alone and everything's fine. Now, try to open both of them at the same time. Race condition!

It turns out if you have one drawer open, you can't open the other drawer! It's locked, literally :P

I can't fathom what merited this particular design choice. Did the designer think something catastrophic would happen if I had both my drawers open at the same time? Nonetheless, it certainly isn't an intuitive feature, nor easily discoverable. But my mind is just a bit more at ease now that I've solved this particular conundrum. :)

--Arkajit

Harry Potter Magic Meets Science

First, Invisibility Cloaks, now Wingardium Leviosa, what next? :) Check out this article:

Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.

	In theory the discovery could be used to levitate a person

In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible.

Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects' by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.