Why Measuring a $4 Spudger Tip Is Weirdly Hard
Daniel wrote in with a confession — he loves his spudger, the humble pry tool every electronics tinkerer owns — and a problem: he wants to measure the thickness of its tip, but the tip is sub-millimetre and his caliper can't honestly read that small. What follows is a tour through the surprisingly deep world of precision measurement, from calipers and micrometers to ultrasonic thickness gauges and white light interferometry, plus the materials science behind why you can't make a spudger tip both thinner and stronger at the same time. If you've ever wondered where your tools stop being…
The skinny
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