Curiosity is a powerful force that drives humans to explore the world around us. It's the reason why we ask questions and venture into the unknown. And sometimes, it leads us to break or open things just to see what's inside, too.
In this list, Bored Panda gathered some of the most surprising and intriguing cross-sections that we could find. From the inside of a bowling ball to the inner workings of a cactus, these pictures are sure to stir up your interest. We've even "cut up" a mechanical calculator to show its complex mechanisms!
So sit back, relax, and continue scrolling to enjoy this fascinating journey through the unexpected contents of everyday objects.
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Picked Up An Old Clam Beside A Lake In South Australia And Found A Small Colony Of Plants Inside, Living Off Of The Nutrients
My Dog Finally Finished Her Favorite Toy Tonight, Only To Find There Was A Smaller, Even More Squeaky Toy Inside
The process of taking something apart to understand how it works is called reverse engineering, and there are many reasons why someone (or a company) might do it.
You can reverse engineer consumer products, software, mechanical parts, pieces of technology, or even architectural structures.
When companies employ this practice, engineers usually do it without the original blueprints. While there are many ways to reverse engineer a product, a popular method is to take apart a smaller part of a product and analyze it until you get a thorough understanding of it.
Cross-Section Of Several Different Cables
My Firewood Had A Pine Cone Inside The Tree
The cone is likely older then the tree. And the tree grew around it more then likely due to the sap causing it to stick
The Squeaker From Inside Her Dog Toy Has Declared Her The Winner
It would be amazing to have a collection of these over the years
You can deconstruct (and reconstruct) things in many different areas. Jazz musicians can take apart a song and put the ideas together in a new improvisation of the original. Writers might look at a well-known story and retell it in a new, fresh way.
The musical West Side Story, for example, was based on the storyline from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and James Joyce’s Ulysses is a modern-day retelling of The Odyssey by Homer.
The Inside Of This Guitar Looks Like A Really Fancy Apartment
The Wine I Ordered Online Came With A Tiny Set Of Dice Packaged Inside A Hollow Cork
Had To Cut A Sunflower In Half Today At Work, Thought It Might Be Appreciated Here
The Inside Of A Cactus
If I'm not wrong, these vessels are used to store and transport water. It's called xylem and it's present in every plant, but it's stronger and larger in cacti because of dry climate.
In business, updating older products for current use is also one of the main reasons why people turn to reverse engineering. It could include rebuilding:
- An old or outdated product;
- An expensive product using cheaper or more readily available materials;
- A product that uses mechanical parts that no longer exist;
- Another company's product to learn about it;
- Reverse engineering helps engineers understand the product's function, which they can use to create an effective updated version that still meets user requirements.
A Cross-Section Of A Professional Painter's Palette (6 Months Deep)
this is super interesting (although as an artist, I am shook as to how the painter didn't clean it out once)
The paint turns into plastic, so it can’t go down the drain. You just leave it to dry instead
Load More Replies...This is very like fordite-otherwise known as Detroit Agate. Its automobile paint found in old auto factories. The layers of paint dry rock solid over the years, and people use it to make jewellery from. It can be cut and polished just like quartz, and has lovely swirling multi coloured stripes.
yeah a paper bowl. my favorite is Dixie they are lined with a bit of plastic or whatever to keep the moisture from making a mess.
Load More Replies...??? Wait. oh. what.. you... people don't... clean... their palettes regularly (obviously I am not a pro... I know next to nothing... other than paint exists)
My mom's a professional artist and I've never seen one of her palettes get this thick. Although it looks like this person was using a paper bowl, so they possibly planned to just throw it away and didn't bother cleaning it.
Load More Replies...More of a deep bowl than a palette, makes me think this was made on purpose. Not that impressive, imo.
In Missoula, MT there's a steel wall that they call the graffiti wall that gets a few inches worth of paint built up throughout the year, and every winter it gets super cold and the paint comes off in sheets. There's a wall cleaning weekend every spring to scrape it clean and many local artists use the paint chunks. Someone made a skateboard.
If you’ve never heard of “fordite”, you should check it out. It’s layers of paint from painting cars and they polish it and make jewelry out of it. It’s a similar look to this, where you can see all the layers of color.
That looks kind of like fordite, aka Detroit agate, which is what comes off the walls of places where cars are spray-painted.
Heh, I had a teacher at primary school show us a chunk like this, but not in a bowl, it had come out of a paint mixing canister, and asked us what we thought it was. I don't think anyone guessed. This was back in the 70s
Art never fails us. Art is all around us. Art never dies, or lies. Art is infinite, eternal and in our hearts forever.
Must be acrylic paint. Oils wouldn't do this. My palette is wooden and it gets cleaned when the work in progress is done.
I would love to see this cut into slices and made into another piece of art. 💚
Just like a paintbooth you can carve and polish the bits into some cool jewelry
Inside Of A Mechanical Calculator
It's such a wonder humans could think about creating beauties like this and actually make it function
The Tigers On These Socks Look Like House Cats When Turned Inside Out
The Inside Of A Pine Cone
Reverse engineering can also help repair products that are already on the market. This process can be especially helpful if nobody is sure what's causing the issue. Engineers may also take these products apart to see if there are any ways to fix them or improve functionality with new technology or smarter design. For example, a company may learn that newly available technology can help improve glitching issues within a software application. Through the reverse engineering process, they may also learn that there's a more efficient way to create the product.
Cross-Section Of Our Painter’s 1-Year-Old Stir Stick
The Inside Of An HDMI Cable
My Sister Found This Tiny Egg Inside Her Hard-Boiled Egg
I usually like hard boiled eggs, but for this one I'll make an eggception.
Bit Into A Wonderful Surprise Today And Learned About The Delicious Lucy Glo Apple. The Best Apple I Have Ever Had
As writer Eric Braun pointed out, deconstruction also plays a part in teaching something to someone else. In order to pass down the knowledge, you need to understand its components and how they fit together. This comes from focused learning on each aspect of the topic. If a student does not understand something and has a question, the teacher will not be able to convey the topic if they cannot answer it.
The Inside Of My Red Onion Looks Like A Lotus Flower
Black lotus 0 Mono artifact adds three mana of one color of your choice to your mana pool, then is discarded. tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt.
This Is A Tree Burning From The Inside In Oregon, USA. Don’t Let The Rain Fool You
The Inside Of My Inflatable Air Mattress
Elephant's Foot
As you can see, you can learn a great deal by taking things apart. However, if you decide to do it, don't forget to take pics and share them with the rest of us!
For more similar "lessons", fire up Bored Panda's earlier publications 30 Photos Of Objects Cut In Half That Reveal The Unseen Side Of Things and 30 Times People Broke Or Opened Things And Were Surprised By What They Found Inside.
I Cut Into A Cantaloupe And The Inside Was Square
This Cedar Wood That I Was Cutting Had Purple Inside
Cross-Section Of A Banana Tree Trunk
Cut In Half Cables Used In The Golden Gate Bridge
There Was A Billiard Ball Inside Of My Bocce Ball
Inside Of A CT Scanner Undergoing Maintenance
Inside Of This Tomato Looks Like A Perfect Strawberry
Opened Up A Lighter And There Was Just Another Lighter Inside
Steel Core Inside A "Rubber" Bullet
Cross-Section Of A Poppy Flower Before Blooming
Cross-Section Of A Whale Rib
There Was A Bag Of Tiny Dice Inside My Bar Of Soap
One Of Our Chickens Just Laid A Jumbo Egg With Another Egg Inside
Manual Focus Camera Lens
The Stacked Layers Of Anodes And Cathodes Inside Of A Duracell Battery
A Bowling Ball With Its Inside Exposed. I Found In The Woods
Repurposed. Kid's Halloween Snap-On Bracelet Cut Opened, Is Actually A Tape Measure
This type were banned years ago because they're so dangerous. That metal tape measure can slash right through a child's delicate wrist with catastrophic results.
The Insides Of A Movie Theater Screen
The Inside Of A Fire Alarm Is Just A Simple Switch
I think the point here is to be consistent - older alarm switches would have pulled a heavier or more complex mechanism, the alarm switch has to remain easily identifiable however so while the technology got simpler the switch itself needs to stay the same.
Pulled A Paper Wasp Nest From The Corner Of My Shed And It Left A Perfect Cross-Section
Inside Of A Hose Looks Like A Water Balloon
The Die From The Inside Of A Magic 8-Ball
What's Inside The Breast Implant?
The Inside Of A Bomb
The Other Side Of A Fast Food Soda Fountain
The Inside Of This Golf Ball Looks Like A Boiled Egg
Accidentally Cut Open A Cheap Kid's Baseball With My Lawn Mower
The Inside Of An IKEA Desk Top
Fun fact: this structure allows almost the same strength if the desk was fully filled and uses a lot less material! It's used in most cardboards.
You Can See The Inside Of An Etch A Sketch When You Color It Completely
I've tried doing this before, I got like two tiny rows done and gave up. It's harder than it looks
This Is What The Inside Of Different Golf Balls Looks Like
My Flannel Has A Piece Of Microfiber On The Inside To Clean Your Glasses
Ford Model T
Doorknob In My 1907 House Stopped Working, So I Took The Mechanism Apart To Fix It - This Is What A 113-Year-Old Door Latch Looks Like Inside
Peony Bud
The Sinkhole In Fukuoka. It Formed In Front Of Hakata Station And Took Two Days To Repair Everything
i don't think it took two days to repair EVERYTHING. maybe it took two days to repair the cables? EDIT: i googled: it really only took two days to repair the hole :D that's amazing! (Video: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/nov/15/japanese-workers-repair-road-48-hours-after-sinkhole-appears-video )
This Is The Confetti Inside Of A Party Popper
Alright imma go cut some things up right now. If I don't return tomorrow, know that my mom has killed me for destroying things
Someone Smashed A Tee Marker At This Golf Course I’m Playing At And This Was Inside
Cross-Section Of Some Severe Termite Damage
Porcelain Toilet Base In The Plumbing Lab At George Brown College
Any plumbers out there want to tell me why it needs to go up then down? Why can't it just go down?
This Tree Trunk Has Stars Inside
Airplane Wheel
I Cut Open A 10-Year-Old Rubber Band Ball And Found That It Had Fused Together
Fossilized Conifer Cone From The Middle Jurassic (Pararaucaria Patagonica)
Roman Well
The Inside Of A Piano
Jawbreakers Are Magical When Cut In Half
Statue Of Liberty
Zippo Lighter
The Inside Of A Pinball Machine From 1992
I used to service pinballs and video games back in the 80's. I *LOVE* working on Pinballs. They are about as steam punk as you get. ;)
A Friend Bought A N64 Game And Found This Inside
I Cut Open A Waspєs Nest And It Looks Like A Tiny Tree On A Hill
The Inside Of A Redbox Kiosk
Cross-Sections Of Different Kinds Of Sword Blades
What The Inside Of A Freestyle Soda Machine Looks Like
A Cross-Section Of The Wire That Supplies Power To My House
This USB Drive Is Just An SD Card Inside A Casing
Boeing 727
Upholstered Chair From A 19th Century Austrian Palace
I don't understand why Lyop is being downvoted for asking an honest question. Can everyone stop doing this to people trying to gain knowledge? Please? As a horse owner, it doesn't look like horse hair, but I also don't know what it would look like after a bunch of time. I don't feel like this person was trying to be hateful. A lot of countries have dark pasts.
The Inside Of A Brand New Tissue Box
The Insides Of A Vanilla Bean
MMMM vanilla beans!! put it in a jar with sugar and get vanilla sugar!
A Cross-Sectional View Of Asphalt
3.5mm Headphone Plug And Jack
Ferrari Enzo Cam And Oil Pump Drives
So beautiful - but this is like the party at the end of school, these last few decades - electric cars, yadda-yadda, - but . . . I don't the same beauty will be in the mechanism, any more than in any other appliance.
This Inside Of My Expired Credit Card
I've taken apart my parents old credit cards before, its really cool! They have different patterns and colors and stuff!
An Escalator In Madrid’s Subway
Pictures like this will forever make me think of that poor woman in China who fell through an unsecured panel into the working machinery underneath. She did not survive.
The Insides Of My Cooktop Look Like A DJ's Turntables
My Antibiotic Is A Tablet Inside Of A Capsule
FIFA Has Approved The Use Of Semi-Automated Offside Technology For The 2022 World Cup In Qatar
There's a chip inside every official match ball, with 12 dedicated tracking cameras in each stadium to enhance fairness and fan 'enjoyment'.
7.62x54R 7N13 AP (Armour Piercing) Ammo Cutaway
Firework Shell
Inside A $200 Industrial Power Supply Unit
Client Is Renovating An Old Bank Into A Medical Office. Here's The Insides Of The Safe Door
What The Inside Of A Concrete Mixer Drum Looks Like
Car Cassette Adaptor
The Inside Of This Cheap Door Is Filled With Cardboard
Collection Of Cutaway Padlocks
The Inner Workings Of Shaving Cream
I Found This Iron With A Stone Inside
That stone is put in the fire/on the stove to heat up and then is inserted into the iron to provide the heat.
The Insides Of A LED Light Bulb
M82A91 “Silver Bullet” Tank Shell
Fire Hydrant Cutaway
Inside Of A Wind Turbine Tower
I’m guessing the stirrup-looking fixtures on the ladder are for attaching body harness lanyards as you go. Still, the orthostatic shock of the fall would be pretty bad.
What The Inside Of A Gas Pump Looks Like
Cut The Top Of An Old Fire Extinguisher
My Wooden Cutting Board Fell Apart And Revealed A Bunch Of Little Wooden Slats Inside
What The Inside Of An Inflatable Paddle Board Looks Like
Gas Pump Nozzle
Inside Of A Starbucks Espresso Machine
My Jawbreaker That Has My Face Cramping, Cut In Half
Comfy Chair
Seawater Valve Used For Firefighting Aboard Ships
Amazon Echo
Dentition From The Inside
It's a coloured mould of their teeth. Perhaps made to fashion a dental plate.
Inside Of A Tumbler Doll
The Inside Of The Balloon Weights
The Inside Of A Photo Booth
Motorcycle Tire
This is actually a dirtbike tire, but a dirtbike is basically an offroad motorcycle.
The Inside Of A Keurig Cup
The Inside Of An Xbox Controller
I Found This Opened McDonald's Kiosk During My Trip In Netherland
The Inside Of A Oculus Controller
The Insides Of Nerf Gun
those things especially the super ones hurt like hell. what happened to the simple ones where they couldnt be deconstructed when you wanted to change the power of it???
What The Inside Of A Drill Looks Like
Inside Of My 10-Year-Old Xbox One
Inside Of The Dinosaur's Bone
These were all very interesting. We need more content like these on bored panda.
15 minutes ago there were 127 of these, now there's 50. I don't like that
you can just click on the '127' button at the end of the shortened list, Bored P. does that a lot... can't figure out why sometimes when they cut a list from 53 to 50. AND they never cut the AITA wedding stories!!!
Load More Replies...Sorry you feel this way... I loved most of the entries.
Load More Replies...These were all very interesting. We need more content like these on bored panda.
15 minutes ago there were 127 of these, now there's 50. I don't like that
you can just click on the '127' button at the end of the shortened list, Bored P. does that a lot... can't figure out why sometimes when they cut a list from 53 to 50. AND they never cut the AITA wedding stories!!!
Load More Replies...Sorry you feel this way... I loved most of the entries.
Load More Replies...