Candle Lit Romance

The recent OP story of the thread Strange Relationship made me wonder what a slightly soused (they drove home together !!) young pair get up to when they manage to get home.
Would there be some lit candles ? Some prelude music ? Perhaps sharing of the buds of the earphone attached to some song playing on the smartphone ?

The thought of candle reminded me of an old old US Patent about a candle snuffer.

Imagine a boy and girl, come home from a party, slightly soused. They both have unspoken thoughts pretty much amounting to the same expectations. Because it is their first time, facing one another under the bright light of the living room might inject some sober thoughts into their brains, and ruin the mood for hanky-panky for one or both of them. So the girl lights a candle, sets it in its holder on the coffee table, and the pair settle in the sofa in front of it. And then they drink some soda, and try some conversation, neither one being able to broach the subject of what ought to come next. Who'd be the first to sidle along the sofa, get closer, and be in contact ? When they seem to be running out of more stupid things to say to one another, each would wish the candle to snuff itself out, plunge the room into darkness, and help them out.

This US Patent US4138211 on an automatic candle snuffer addresses that issue. The key part of the patented widget is a Strip of Nickel-Titanium Alloy, that is an example of a memory alloy. When this strip is bent, it will stay bent. However, when it is heated a little bit, it will straighten to its original shape.

Figure 1 shows a bent Nickel-Titanium strip (#36) attached to the candle with a clamp(#32) on one-side and a snuffing cone on the other. Initially there will be some length of candle above the clamp (this length of candle is for the time to run out of conversation, and the length would vary depending on people/situation).

Figure 2 shows that the candle had burned down to the level of the clamp and the bend in the memory alloy strip #36 is straightening up in the warmth of the candle-flame, with the snuffing cone getting more poised to fall over the flame #14.

Figure 3: When this happens, it is cue for the pair on the sofa to "go where they want to go"


source where you can read the full patent

Note: Memory alloys have quite a number of military applications.

 

I was writing about patents in another forum thread, and trivia sloshes up in the noggin when I read/write something in this forum.

US Patents require the widget to be of utility. So people describe uitlity-of-the-invention in a long winded paragraph. The romance thing is not mentioned directly -- the patent goes on about candles being fire hazards, and should be put out when not necessary etc.. etc... However, we know that candle-light in the western countries is always linked to things that are romantic. In the East, .... well.. candles remind people of power cuts, brownouts...etc..

There is the following mention of an earlier patent in this patent. Nickel-Titanium alloys were used in the detonators of bombs. You can imagine "completing an electrical circuit by a suddenly straightening wire".. and the thing goes "kabooOOM.."

The most outstanding example of a material for construction of said staff is the group of nickel-titanium alloys developed at the U.S. Naval Ordinance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland, U.S.A., and described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,174,851.
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Your videos of spring loaded candle snuffer is the same concept, and a lot less Rube-Goldberg-esque. [Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.]

There is a parable in south india about catching a crane (the bird that stands quietly in shallow water, and spears a fish that comes by too close): The procedure calls for getting up pretty early in the morning, going to the riverbank (lakeshore, pond etc..) with a piece of butter, sneak up to the crane, and placing the butter on its head, and then sneaking back to hide in the bushes nearby. When the sun is higher, the temperature goes up, butter melts, and covers the bird's eyes, one would come out of the bush, rush the crane and catch it. In Telugu as well as Tamil, there is a pithy reference to this in a phrase -- I'd forgotten that phrase. Anyhow... that is a Rube Goldberg.

 

When lights are out, the mind may go one way or the other.
Don't girls cut classes and sneak of to matinee movies with their admirers ?
And when the lights go off in the movie theater, and the boy doesn't attempt to sneak his hand over her shoulder, and not even share an armrest with her, wouldn't she be frustrated ?

 

You are deeply touched by that story, aren't you ?
We are like pebbles in a quincunx -- dropped into the scheme (of life). Most of us fall within the six sigma, and be sort of "average", and have a conventional life. A few fall outside, far away from the 6-sigma distribution, and become outliers. Their choices, and lives are different.