Hello, long time lurker-first time poster. I'm John Markus, a research support staff member of the physics department at the University of Cincinnati. I'm probably mostly responsible for corrupting several people here by having tops around, but physics people are easy prey when attacked with physics toys so they are partially to blame (is blaming the victim a reasonable defense in this case?).
Some of you have probably done the math and noticed that there are four of us but five Quicksilvers were ordered. I'm the greedy one but don't be fooled into believing that my skills merit one let alone two fine tops, I'm just greedy.
(embarrassed smiley since there's no guilty smiley) Something you don't know is that I had two additional Quicksilvers ordered (after our personal stock) for our department's collection of physics demonstrations to be used in lectures and at science fairs. We intend to assemble a version of ta0's fabulous 'spintop motor' to demonstrate magnetic induction. It will be used with the rip starters so kids and everyone can try it. I'm not sure if we got those but if they were the last, sorry to those who need to wait for the next batch. (If we didn't get those, my 'spare' will become the demo so nothing for the ebayers)
