Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/12/the-feel-flux-grants-the-sense.html
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I have a coworker who has an ordinary copper pipe and a cylindrical magnet that he does this with.
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That video is foolish scaremongering. An elevator cannot fall down the shaft. It quite literally fails safe.
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There are breaks designed to kick in. However, you can drop a floor before that happens. I was stuck in an elevator for an hour while waiting for the maintenance.
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Absolutely. But you didn’t fall half a kilometer to your doom. The elevator in the video reaches terminal velocity while you calmly stack up luggage as a shock absorber. I think they came up with physics ideas without actually calling up Otis Elevators.
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I was going to ask if that would work.
So the trick is finding a good magnet that will fit in your tube.
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Yeah but what if Dennis Hopper blows the explosive charges he’s attached to the brakes?
Or what if you go back in time to 1945 and are operating an Empire State Building elevator when a B-25 crashes into it?
Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was injured. Rescuers decided to transport her on an elevator that they did not know had weakened cables. The cables snapped and the elevator fell 75 stories, ending up in the basements. She managed to survive the fall, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall, and was later found by rescue workers among the rubble.
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An elevator should be fail safe, unless the fail safes are out of order too. As likely cause of death it’s probably at about the same level as being hit by debris from a falling satellite, but it’s fun to speculate about.
My bet for survival would be lying down on the floor. The g force will be much larger but it will be spread out over your entire body. In the more likely case described by Chaz1 where the elevator just fall a bit before stopping, just bend your knees.
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*Cringes*
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If you use alternating current, you can even build up enough current to melt the metal.
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Or what if there was a tornado full of sharks?
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With freaking laser beams on their heads!
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Holy crap this was a real thing
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joke is funnier if you reverse it.
I like to make a pile out of the other passengers, and lay on top of that.
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The g force is already spread over your entire body - that’s how gravity works. Lying flat on the floor is going to maximize your deceleration … and that’s not good.
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If you want to make a fun game to stump and annoy your friends, make a box with a simple target on it, say one foot square. Hidden in the box, mount a strong neodymium magnet, 2 or 3 inches in diameter, 1 inch thick or so directly under the center. Put the box on the floor and let them pitch coins on it, trying to hit the bull’s eye.
It’s not impossible, but the dynamics will be all messed up.
(Coins with iron will give away the trick.)
Edit to add: CAUTION! Magnets of this size can be very dangerous to handle. Use caution!
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The hell you will!
I’ll offer to lie under you as well fall, discreetly bracing my dominant side against the floor. At the last second, the cushion becomes the cushioned!!!
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It works with a broken-of piece of neodymium magnet and any copper tube, or even a thick-walled aluminium tube.
You can also take a piece of neodymium magnet from a discarded hard-disk and slide it on a steeply sloped aluminium profile with thick walls. Not as impressive but still …
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True in fidgeting, true in life.
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