Tiny Tuesday Record Stylus

For today's TT challenge I decided to photograph a record stylus. The needle pointing upwards in the photo is for playing 33 rpm or 45 rpm records (the label reads "78" but that is to be read from the other side).

According to this web article,  a 12" 33 rpm record has 225 grooves per inch, each groove being about half the width of a human hair; if uncoiled the groove would be over half a mile long. The radius of curvature of the tip for playing these records is 0.001" (for an old-style 78 rpm record the tip is 0.0025"). The stylus only touches the groove at 2 tiny points, where the pressure is 26 tons per square inch! - even though the force itself is only a few grams. It's no wonder therefore that good quality stylus tips are made of diamond, and even that wears out in time (as a rule of thumb they should be replaced every 800-1000 hours of playing time).

I knew a bit of this before, but blipping made me research the topic more. Good for blip!!

Good for JDO as well who is hosting Tiny Tuesday this month.