Lessons from Nature Podcast

Sugar is Energy: Observation 37. Light is Honey. 2020

April 17, 2024 Mark Rubin Season 1 Episode 37
Sugar is Energy: Observation 37. Light is Honey. 2020
Lessons from Nature Podcast
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Lessons from Nature Podcast
Sugar is Energy: Observation 37. Light is Honey. 2020
Apr 17, 2024 Season 1 Episode 37
Mark Rubin

Observation:

The most important observation in the story is the realization that hexagons offer a highly efficient structure for different purposes. The narrator discovered this while designing a simple, cost-effective fire pit, leading to insights about energy optimization in nature and business, similar to how bees use hexagons in honeycombs to efficiently store energy.

The Lesson:

Simplicity and efficiency in design, inspired by nature, can lead to significant savings in resources and effort.

How this is Helpful:

  1. Efficiency: Encourages optimal use of resources.
  2. Inspiration: Demonstrates learning from nature's designs.
  3. Innovation: Promotes creative problem-solving by thinking oppositely.


Questions for Reflection:

  1. Nature's Wisdom: How can nature's designs inspire solutions in my life?
  2. Resource Use: Am I using resources in the most efficient way?
  3. Opposite Thinking: What innovative ideas can emerge from considering the opposite of a problem?


For more ‘Practical Dreaming’, visit https://www.markianrubin.life/practical-dreaming 

Show Notes Transcript

Observation:

The most important observation in the story is the realization that hexagons offer a highly efficient structure for different purposes. The narrator discovered this while designing a simple, cost-effective fire pit, leading to insights about energy optimization in nature and business, similar to how bees use hexagons in honeycombs to efficiently store energy.

The Lesson:

Simplicity and efficiency in design, inspired by nature, can lead to significant savings in resources and effort.

How this is Helpful:

  1. Efficiency: Encourages optimal use of resources.
  2. Inspiration: Demonstrates learning from nature's designs.
  3. Innovation: Promotes creative problem-solving by thinking oppositely.


Questions for Reflection:

  1. Nature's Wisdom: How can nature's designs inspire solutions in my life?
  2. Resource Use: Am I using resources in the most efficient way?
  3. Opposite Thinking: What innovative ideas can emerge from considering the opposite of a problem?


For more ‘Practical Dreaming’, visit https://www.markianrubin.life/practical-dreaming 

00:00

My name is Mark Rubin, and I'm a dream weaver. I hope these widgets help you weave your dreams into reality. This is a story that occurred in 2018. But it became more important in 2020, I was in my backyard, and I wanted to install a fire pit, so that I could hang out in my backyard and fires all year round. I went back there with a contractor. And I was telling him my ideas about the kind of fire pit that I would want to have. And originally, I wanted a round firepit, like 22 to 24 feet across white stones, cool fire structure, you know, in the middle, cemented together wooden benches, some electricity, for lights, charging things and stuff like that. And the contractor looked at me and he's like, No. No, what do you mean? No, he goes, he goes, you don't want a concrete and stone firepit back here. And I'm like I don't, he says it's too much work. It's too far from from your driveway. And we'd have to get a machine to move the concrete and stones down here and we tear up your yard. And it will cost a lot of money and take a lot of time, it'd be too much work. And I don't want to do it. I thought I never I didn't think about the work at that point of what the work was going to be. He was right. And I thought about the distance and the time, and the weight and the destruction. And I thought no, I guess you're right, I don't want that. So I was standing there, my backyard and 2018. Thinking about the kind of firepit that would be the opposite of that, which should be the simplest firepit that could be assembled in the shortest period of time with the least amount of work, which is like what I think about all the time, basically. And I was arranging all the objects in my mind in different ways, different things I knew and different characteristics and properties that made something advantageous or disadvantageous. And I was thinking about starting one way to do this stuff is to think about the thing that doesn't work. And then think of the opposite. So the opposite of smallish rocks and concrete and water is a single long thing. So I thought what's the longest single thing that two people could carry down here, and I came up with a four by four piece of wood, which is this square cross section of a piece of wood. And I thought, Okay, so two people could carry, you know, these four by fours down here. And then I've thought, what size is this firepit. And I want it to go out about 2020 to 25 feet across, I figured 22 would be good. So if I got some four by fours that were eight feet long or 10 feet long, then they could be cut at angles. And I could make like a geometric structure back here and then and then screw them together, and then put stones in them, and then put the fire pit in the middle of that and accomplish what I wanted. And then I thought, well, what would what would the shape be? That would be the best shape. And I was running through different shapes like a square first started like a triangle, then you go to a square, you keep going. You got to a hexagon and realize that would be a strong shape and hexagons were strong. And I already previously in my life spent a lot of time thinking about God geodesic structures, and triangles never thought about a hexagon before. So I was thinking the good thing about a hexagon is that the angles are known in advance. And so the contractor who come on the driveway wouldn't even need to bring like a heavy compound miter saw down there. With like a generator, none of that you could do everything on the driveway, Bring these pieces of wood down, stack them up into a hexagon screw them together a film of rocks and call it a day has thinking about hexagons, like super efficient shape. Because comparing the amount of work he told me anything like days to do it at a stone in concrete, and he picked up gigantic number like I think it was either four or $6,000 to do, which was a lot and also like, not necessary for this situation. And I'm just thinking like how many trips I was like, okay, like if you had, I don't know, six sides times 212 pieces of wood guys can bring it down here in 10 minutes. You know, it'd be faster. You know, you get it all done in a couple of hours as opposed to many days that's like, oh, it's less work and less weight. And it's less steps. And so I asked him how much it would be to make a hexagon out of out of wood. And it was like $500 to do that versus like 1000s of dollars to do what I originally imagined. And I was standing there and I was struck by other hexagon the way I think is like oh, how many other hexagons do I know and how can I apply hexagons and other ways in my life and you know, where are hexagon? arms around me. And I know they're on bulletproof vests, for example. And they're in Honeycomb. And that's used in space materials super light, super strong. Then I started thinking about honeycomb. And I'm like, What is honeycomb is where the bees put the honey. And this is, this is 2018, before I got my big Buy, buy two years back, they're thinking about, you know, bees put honey in a honeycomb structure, because just for the same exact reason that my contractor could do the least amount of work to create the biggest volume by making this firepit in a honeycomb shape, which is the strongest shape that takes the least amount of Tarek materials to have the biggest volume. Same is true for the bees is that they do the least amount of work to gather the energy, which in their case is sugar. And in my case, the energy is money. And I'm trading money for work. And they're trading honey for work. And so they want to they want to build a structure that cost the least amount of honey to stash the most amount of energy. And I was like, That's fascinating. I'm just standing there talking to this guy. And that's really fascinating about bees, bees know how to do this automatically. And then I realized that there's like a confirmation bias because all the bees that built honeycomb out of you know, cubes, they didn't live because it was less efficient. And they lost the game of competition. So I was thinking about the bees and energy optimization that they use this optimal structure. And just like in business is if I had a truck, my trucks get about, you know, six to eight miles per gallon, which isn't very good. But if I had a truck that got let's just say 12 miles per gallon, double, double the fuel economy, then I could charge less money, then I'll have a competitive advantage over all the other junk bees in my habitat because I could charge less and still cover all my costs, and create the same margin in the end. I was like that's an advantage. So just just thinking about this idea. And then I was thinking while I was sitting there about the idea of a sugar molecule is also a hexagon for the same reason how I was like, that's amazing. I was like the molecular structure of energy, which is sugar, which is what powers all living things is a hexagon. And the bees, put it inside a hexagon. And I thought that was amazing. And so I'm doing you know this eco project called Project honey light. And I decided to use jars that were hexagons. And the idea is that the sugar in this honey is in the shape of a hexagon, the bees put it into a hexagon. And I'm packaging it in a hexagon because it cost the least amount of work to stash the most amount of light. And this This got me thinking in 2018 about how cool honeybees were in terms of optimization and the business of the bees sounds like they're doing a business. Like they're in the business of making honey. You know, they're in the business of optimizing energy transfer energy from the sun and converting it into a structure with the least amount of work, to store that energy in the structure to bank that energy to buy time to not work. The 300 or so days a year. There's no flowers, I was like, that's amazing. I was like putting on business. And two years later when the pandemic hit, and I was looking for something to do my backyard, my firepit and hanging out. I thought I'm gonna learn about bees. And this idea that sugar is energy came from designing my firepit and that led to the way explaining the secrets of the bees and projects on the lake.