Don't click here! You and your computer will disappear into a black hole. But not to worry; no one will notice.

Super April Sale! Yes, April comes once a year.

SPECIALS FOR PHYSICS TEACHERS

If you've ever been embarrassed by demonstrations that didn't (or if you've ever occasionally faked results) then you need ideal equipment. No teacher should be without an adequate stock of ideal equipment. We guarantee the textbook results every time. It's easy to use, inexpensive, and it works!

IDEAL HOOKIAN SPRINGS Throw out all those stretched springs and replace them with IDEAL Hookian Springs.

Are you tired of replacing laboratory springs when students extend them beyond their elastic limit? Our IDEAL Hookian springs are the answer to your problems. These springs may be extended to 10100 percent of their original length, and will return to their original length without fail. Hysteresis is no longer a problem! Perfect for experiments on Hooke's law, simple harmonic motion, etc.

$100 each, a bit pricey, but weigh that against the continuing cost of replacing ordinary springs.

MAGNETIC MONOPOLES

We've been searching for a supplier of these for many years. Finally, you can throw away those heavy bar magnets and replace them with these compact magnetic field sources. Positive and negative monopoles are shipped separately, and the user must assume responsiblity for keeping them from getting near each other. Due to their mutual repulsion, each kind is shipped in a very strong box made of our perfect magnetic shielding, also useful for other experimental purposes. Guaranteed 1/r2 fields to 0.1% when isolated from other magnets, or measured within a fully enclosing magnetic shield (the shipping container is fine for this). Exercise great care when opening the shipping container Exercise great care when opening the box.

$2000/dozen. Shipping, $5000.

FRICTIONLESS PLANES

Essential equipment for studies of motion and mechanics. All of Newton's Laws can be easily and correctly demonstrated with the aid of an ISE frictionless plane (together with some or all of the other items shown in this catalog). Available in any size up to 3m×2m! Just send us your specifications!

SALE PRICE...$16.95/m2 (Cutting charges extra.)

Call for prices on perfectly rigid friction backing to achieve perfect flatness and secure positioning. In this form we can provide leveling feet, and handles at any location you desire. We can also drill holes around the perimeter for permanent positioning.

The ISE perfect spirit level may be used, but leveling may be easily achieved by simply placing any small object on the sheet and adjusting the legs until that object executes simple harmonic motion about the center of the sheet.

How does one get off of a frictionless plane? How does one get on it?

This box may not appear full, due to settling in shipment. POINT PARTICLES

Another "must" for proper mechanics demonstrations! ISE point-particles (integral numbers of grams), are available in all masses from 1g to 10kg. Buy the 10kg box and SAVE!

SALE PRICE...$11.65/10kg

HYDRODYNAMICAL FLUID

We are the sole supplier of this unique product (made by us under licence granted by Bernoulli International). Completely free of viscosity and totally incompressible, it is otherwise indistinguishable from ordinary water.

SALE PRICE...$850/bbl.

RIGID BODIES

Have you ever had a demonstration fail due to non-rigidity of an essential part of your apparatus? This can be both frustrating and embarrassing, but is it a soluble problem! An ISE rigid body NEVER flexes! We can cut and machine this material to any desired specifications. Specify precise dimensions when requesting an estimate.

SALE...20% off regular prices.

Styled after the original design. GAMMA-RAY MICROSCOPES

A modern realization of a classic! Heisenberg microscopes, superbly hand-crafted in the workshops of our European subsidiary, Gedanken Wissenschaft. Just a few left, so order today!

SALE PRICE...$743.85 ea.

INEXTENSIBLE STRING

A popular standby. No laboratory is complete without it! GUARANTEED to satisfy all textbook specifications for pulley problems. This string is completely inextensible, weightless, and perfectly flexible. Buy it by the 200m reel. These pulleys also have frictionless bearings.

SALE PRICE...$6.47/reel

INERTIALESS PULLEYS

Everybody said it couldn't be done! We are extremely proud of this new addition to our catalogue, and we are certain that ISE inertialess pulleys will soon revolutionize the art of physics demonstration. Price proportional to square of radius. Use with frictionless bearings (below) for best results.

SALE PRICE (1 cm radius)...$7.69 each.

FRICTIONLESS BEARINGS

Watch them go round and round forever!! These are the same bearings used in our perpetual-motion machine of the first kind.

SALE PRICE...$12.45/pr.

We're not horsing around. These are the real deal.

STANDARD HORSES

These magnificent animals represent the culmination of seventy years of selective breeding experimentation. Each horse is GUARANTEED to do work at a rate of 746 W or your money back!

SALE PRICE...$1599.95 ea.

We use methods traceable to the US Bureau of Standards.

Our standard horses are rigorously tested.

Excellent gifts for the teacher, too. NEWTONIAN APPLES

Demonstrate a small part of physics history and complete your core curriculum! These apples can also serve as treats for your Standard Horse. Harvested from trees grown from scions of the original apple tree in Newton's backyard. Subject to the strictest standards of quality control, each box contains 4 dozen apples, individually wrapped.

SALE PRICE...$19.85/box

BONUS! A frugal researcher named Dave Set up his lab in a cave.    His experiments were few    And failed peer review, But think of the money he saved. With every order over $35.00 we will send you, ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT CHARGE, one cylinder (5 liters at 25 atm.) of IDEAL GAS. Demonstrating gas laws need never again give you heartburn!! Manufactured exclusively by ISE.

BUY NOW! You won't be around to see the next millenium.

FOR SERIOUS RESEARCHERS WHO WON'T SETTLE FOR LESS THAN IDEAL RESULTS. Our line of research apparatus is second to none, because it's IDEAL!

When anything less than perfect just isn't good enough.

NAKED SINGULARITIES

Also see black holes.

$500/dozen. (Buyers must enclose proof that they are over 21 years of age.)

PERFECT HEAT SINKS

Our standard model heat sinks now have infinite capacity (±2%). If you have the time and the energy we invite you to test their capacity yourself. $3000.00 each

New Improved Model Perfect Heat Sink is supplied in Formica with simulated chrome trim. $4000.00 each

TRIVIAL SOLUTIONS

Perfect for cleaning up those seemingly insoluble problems messing up your lab. $10/liter

ZENO'S PARADOXES

Frankly we don't know what uses these might have. We bought the entire inventory of a bankrupt manufacturer. They are cluttering our warehouse so we have priced them to move out fast. You might say these are budget paradoxes.

$1/pair (as is, no guarantees)

CARNOT ENGINES

These engines operate silently and never need lubrication. Guaranteed efficiency of (1 - Tc/Th). Can be run in reverse to cool the lab in summer. Use with our perfect heat sinks for best results. $2,000.00

Occam had a tough beard.

Occam's original razor,
from the Ideal Scientific Equipment Company museum collection.

OCCAM'S RAZOR For a really close shave, use an OCCAM razor.

The basic model introduced by Occam has been greatly improved by the Swiss craftsmen in our Hong Kong manufacturing facility. Blades of finest Swedish surgical steel (imported from Japan). Perfect for slicing through obfuscation, severing red tape, and cutting up a colleague's pet theory.

$75.00 ea. Extra blades $5/doz.

BLACK HOLES

A space-age concept finally brought down to earth. Every lab needs one, and one is quite sufficient, so we sell them singly only. Thousands of uses. A perfect way to dispose of your used Occam's razor blades, unwanted surplus equipment, OSHA inspectors and annoying lab visitors. Replaces administrator's paper-shredders--will even neatly dispose of the old shredder. Permanently dispatches into oblivion unwanted lab data which won't fit theory. Caution: Not for children. Swallowing hazard.

$999.99 each

Sorry, not available in colors, only basic black.

WARNING: The Surgeon-General and the FDA have not approved these for use in holistic medicine.

Sold only in our special shipping container which also serves as a safety shield:

$4,000,000.00

Includes a safety brake so it won't spin dangerously fast. PERPETUAL-MOTION MACHINE

This precision machine will be a real conversation piece sitting on your desk or lab bench, turning silently and forever. Crafted of gleaming stainless steel on a polished walnut base. Absolutely noiseless and vibration-free. While entropy increases all about you it is comforting to relax and watch this precision mechanism spin eternally. This is a perpetual-motion machine of the first kind, therefore it is in continual motion but produces no useful work. This might be a metaphor for much of what goes on in the modern workplace. Includes plastic dust-cover. Batteries not required.

This new model is based on a design by Bob Schadewald, modernizing the classic overbalanced wheel. Frictionless steel rollers ride silently around the specially shaped cutouts in the wheel, ensuring that there's always more weight on one side of the wheel. You may see a larger and more detailed picture of this magnificent machine by clicking here. [Picture © 1992 by Bob Schadewald.]

$999.99

QUANTUM MECHANIC'S TOOL KIT

The essential tools of the trade, packed in an elegant attaché-style simulated leather case. Indispensable for tinkering up wave functions.

  • Miniature wrench and screwdriver sets for effecting small perturbations (in quantized sizes).
  • Crank for equations.
  • Torque-wrenches in integral and half-integral sizes.
  • Generous supply of assorted Hermitian operators. Does anyone know why it's called a TRY square?
  • A large bottle of our best quality nuclear glue.
  • Precision try-square for testing orthogonality of wave functions.
  • Steel Geiger-Nuttall rule.

$1499.00

SPECIAL BONUS OFFER

All orders over $500 postmarked before April 30 will receive free of charge this new audio recording on compact disk. Relive the history of physics in sound!

It's free, and worth every penny.

Music of the Spheres.

Includes:

Harmonice Mundi, by Johannes Kepler (B.V.D. No. 3782). The Angelic Choir of Vienna accompanied by Agnes Dee on the Celestial Harmonium.

Mysterium Cosmographicum by Johannes Kepler. Performed on period instruments by the Canonical Ensemble of Stuttgart.

The Harmonious Oscillator by Erwin Schrödinger. Realized on the Dirac Polyphoney Synthesizer using strictly orthogonal wavefunctions with relativistic modulation.

Perfect for background music in lab. Especially appropriate for planetarium shows.

Due to renewed interest in analog vinyl recordings, we also offer this as a 12 inch LP. Manufactured exclusively for us by Angelic Records. It achieves the remarkably long playing time of 75 minutes as a result of a revolutionary (33 1/3 RPM = 5/9 Hz) new "overlapping grooves" cutting process.

This recording, in either version, may also be purchased outright for $40.00.

When you want the REAL DEAL, buy it from IDEAL.

Accept no substitutes! Insist on IDEAL equipment.

Book Store

Science Books

Gedanken
Experiments
by
Goufhoff Pfumbler

Gedanken Experiments. If your equipment budget just won't stretch enough to buy the IDEAL equipment for those experiments you've dreamed up, then this book is just what you need. It's a virtual encyclopedia of experiments which can be done at absolutely no cost. As with all of our IDEAL offerings, you are guaranteed perfect results. If you can think it, you can DO it.

Hardcover, 314 pages. $29.95 plus $3 shipping.

Mathematics Books

This new addition to our catalog is in keeping with our focus on things IDEAL. What is more idealized than mathematics?

Practical Uses of Null Hypotheses. This book is essential for those theorists who never set foot in a laboratory. Topics include "How to obfuscate eloquently", "Guaranteeing results", and "What to do when hypotheses lead nowhere.".

Hardcover, 410 pages. $49.95 plus $4 shipping.

Forthcoming Titles

Properties and Practical Applications of the Null Set.

The Shape of Geometric Points.

The Null Vector, What's Its Point?

From a spoof by Kenneth Woolner, extended, with permission, by Donald Simanek. Ken's shorter version appeared in Phys-13 News published by the University of Waterloo. This longer version appeard in THE VECTOR 3, 4 (April 1, 1979) Lock Haven State College. Other ideas contributed by Hans-Peter Gramatke. Drawings by John C. Holden.

IoP is a not-for-profit company. Our book could help them retain that status. This material is © 2001 by The Institute of Physics Publishing and appears in the book of science humor by Donald E. Simanek and John C. Holden, titled Science Askew, available directly from fine bookstores worldwide. Additional material © 2002 by Donald Simanek.

Input and suggestions are welcome at the address shown to the right. When commenting on a specific document, please reference it by name or content.

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