A strong fan played at the right angle could keep balls from piling up on the front step. The “leaders” would hopefully fly over the heads of the ones coming up, bounce down to the bottom and then up again.
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I think I get it now. It’s about power. A treadmill with something on it is a lot like a perpetual motion machine because it has electricity that keeps going around and around even though the thing on it kind of stays in place. Is that it?
That the emergency stop button. Every escalator has one, but they’re often built into the center divider, or near the handrail.
That’s because it is no way like a perpetual motion machine. That’s just a really, really bad analogy. The single hallmark characteristic of a perpetual motion machine is that once it starts running, you never need to add more energy to the system in order to keep it running at the same rate. In this case, the escalator motors are constantly putting energy into the system.
Once, my parents wondered why the escalators were always stopped when they got to them. They finally figured out it was because I kept hitting the emergency stop button because the 4-year old me didn’t like riding on moving escalators.
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My hometown of 38,000 still does not have a single escalator in any building. As a kid, I only got to ride one when on a trip, and thought it was a real treat.
A slinky would be amazing… especially once it slowed down enough to get sucked into the innards of the whirling metal stairs.
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Sheesh, white people. Seriously?
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Standing wave/brown noise generator?
If you put all of the balls in metal buckets suspended by rope and pully over a table with no legs…
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Try it with balls that have different masses/bouncyness/sizes to see if it works like a sorting algorithm. Might as well do science as well as have fun.
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I was wondering about tweaking gravity.
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Put numbers on 'em…could make the lottery drawing more interesting.
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I do believe we’ve found the oft-balladed ‘stairway to heaven.’
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You must be fun at parties
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I dunno. Entertaining, sure. But what if I just need the escalator to get to an appointment on time? Damn kids and their stupid pranks!!!
Harumph!
…Uh, yes, I do believe that I have a soul. Why do you ask?
Despite the expression on the face of an early onlooker - who looked distinctly annoyed, if I’m not imagining it - I think it would be quite safe to take that escalator. Once you’ve planted your feet on the first step, you’ll be just fine.
Apart from that rogue neutron ball.
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Actually, while the E-stop button is sometimes on the pedestals, it’s more likely that those are part of the motion-sensor gate, so that the escalators turn off when no one is riding them. Saves power. Kinda like being able to deselect the buttons on elevators, so you don’t go to the wrong floor. They use this stuff all over Asia. Don’t know why the U.S. doesn’t.
Used to visit Hamburg a lot. Auto start/stop escalators popular at all rail stations.
