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The Ideal Hardware Store is a store that sells mechanical equipment, primarily for use in physics experiments. Items available at the store include frictionless pulleys, massless ropes, lossless calorimeters, relativistic spaceships, and dateable female physics students. Some of the major customers of the Ideal Hardware Store are writers of physics books, theoretical physicists, and NASA engineers. The Ideal Hardware Store's exact location is a closely guarded secret, though it is rumored to be located somewhere in McGraw-Hill's publishing office. The store is members-only and outsiders are prevented from entering by the frictionless ramp leading up to their doorway.

[edit] History

The Ideal Hardware Store was founded in 1926 by a high school physics teacher named James K. Ideal. Most physics problems at that time required detailed models of all the systems in use, including friction, temperature, thermal expansion, quantum variations in molecular structure, tolerances in the manufacturing process, and fluctuations in the Earth's gravitational field caused by differences in density and altitude. For example, a typical introductory physics problem given to a first year student might look something like this:

A nearly frictionless near-ramp is manufactured to have an angle of 25 ± 0.01º with the horizontal in one direction, and 0 ± 0.023º in a horizontal perpendicular to that direction. Its profile is a flat plane within a tolerance of 0.1%. It has a linear thermal expansion coefficient of 0.12 ± 0.04 mm/K. A block which is a rectangular prism whose corners are 90º to within 0.134% and whose edges are flat to within 0.072% with dimensions specified to within a tolerance 0.234% is placed on the ramp at a distance along the ramp of 1.43 ± 0.06 m from a fixed point that has been defined as "the ground." The block has a linear thermal expansion coefficient of 0.23 ± 0.03 mm/K. The initial average temperature of the ramp is 301.4 ± 0.2 K fluctuating with a standard deviation of 2.3 ± 0.26 K over the volume of the ramp. The initial average temperature of the block is 301.2 ± 0.3 K fluctuating with a standard deviation of 3.4 ± 0.15 K over the volume of the block. The air within a sphere with a radius of 5.0 ± 0.1 m centered at the initial point of contact between the block and the ramp has a temperature of 301.5 ± 0.1 K fluctuating with a standard deviation of 0.4 ± 0.1 K over the volume of the air. The air in the immediate vicinity of the block has a viscosity of 14.2 ± 0.1 × 10^-6 m²/s, however this will change with the temperature of the air. The block has a cross-sectional area of 223 ± 0.32 cm². The block and the ramp have a coefficient of kinetic friction of 0.0056 ± 0.0004 at their initial temperatures, however this will decrease with increasing temperature of either. The block has a heat capacity of 1,561 ± 1.2 J/K, and the ramp has a heat capacity of 12,341 ± 3.6 J/K. These will also increase with increasing temperature. The block/ramp system is located at an altitude of 1,223 ± 2.4 m above a sphere defined as "sea level." The sun is located 18.1 ± 0.6º from the vertical axis on a line 126.1 ± 0.2º from the down-angle of the ramp. The moon is located 163.6 ± 0.5º from the vertical on a line 32.4 ± 0.3º from the down-angle of the ramp. Taking all of these factors into account, as well heat generated by friction between the ramp and the block, between the block and the air, and between the ramp and the air, calculate the time it will take the block to reach the plane defined as "the ground" as well as its final velocity when it does so. List appropriate tolerances.

A problem such as this was typically given to a physics student in their freshman year and due prior to their graduation. If there were any errors in the student's work, the answer was off by any amount, or there was excessive or insufficient precision, the student's diploma would be withheld. This was very discouraging to many students and resulted a very large number of potential physics students committing suicide and/or deciding to become philosophy majors. The net result was that there was a very small number of actual physicists being produced and most of them had not gone through a formal education process (see for example, A. Einstein).

Ideal recognized this problem and set out to reduce the turnover rate among physics students by requiring them to do less work to solve their problems. By manufacturing devices which did not experience friction, thermal expansion, or drag, as well as devices which existed in one and two-dimensional spaces and were produced with exacting precision, including planets which were perfectly spherical, of exactly uniform density, and were produced in self-contained universes which did not contain any other gravitational bodies, Ideal was able to greatly reduce the amount of work required by physics students, greatly improving their moods, and saving countless numbers of them from the horrors of studying philosophy.