h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ok

unless we revoke the laws of gravity that vase will reach the floor.
I don't care what any Napoleonic scientist said
QI here stands for Quite Impossible.

okay lets calm down
(does some calming breathing and all)

okay

>>> Stand upright, shoulders back, back straight - that's the ticket - now take a glass vase, hold it out arms length at around about shoulder height and drop it.

With any luck it should smash rather spectacularly.

Now what quiet interesting thing could you do with a Hopi Indian, a small division of Napoleon's Army in the Egyptian Campaign, and a chicken, to ensure that the vase never reaches the ground? <<<


so as complicated as Clive has made it sound at first...
the Hopi thing is just a piece of string
the chicken thing is just a feather
and Napoleon's Army in the Egyptian Campaign is just about a pencil

the feather is tied with the string to the base of the vase
the pencil is horizontal but not on the ground

the vase has been dropped

*peers at the quote for a second... peers closer...*

er Clive?

did you mean to say "quiet" interesting
does the feather muffle the sound?
does the pencil?

does quietness have anything to do with it all?

Aha! you've actually dared to speak its name, fluffykerfuffle.
I've been ever so circumspect (on this thread) with people (especially Clive, who has said, in the past that he er, ...).

Still, it doesn't seem to help with the problem - unless of course we should be talking of A Feather /duvet-or-pillow. er, but...

::overly dramatic radio mystery organ music::

::quite so::

Okay, another idea:

Loop the feather around the pencil. The pencil effectively becomes a helicopter blade, but the motor for this helicopter is the amount of air flow around the pencil. So the pencil will spin at a rate proportional to the wind speed,and will therefore produce enough upward force to cancel out gravity.

Though, to be honest, I'd only try that on a vase I didn't care about losing.


Geggs

try Clive's

"the pencil is in my mouth"

No it isn't but it's also not in the hand holding the tethered vase.

"I just dropped a pencil from six feet up (actually I did so five times) and I notice the pencil bounces.(actually one time it flipped end for end"

We applaud your empiricism, Shagbark!

>would it help us to know how long the string was?<

I was wondering how long till someone asked that: long enough so the glass doesn't reach the floor.

>unless we revoke the laws of gravity that vase will reach the floor.<

Not true. You'll probably hate me when you see how simple it is, but that's okay I can deal.

>did you mean to say "quiet" interesting<

No, that's a typo ( A975170 )

"A feather pillow"

Rod - 5

>Loop the feather around the pencil.<

DGI +1

Okay - *how*?

In a helix along the length of the pencil, with the end of the feather tried back onto the string.


Geggs

Is helix quite the right word? Spiral would probably work.

Oh, you know what I mean!




Geggs

There is a spiral involved - but you've not quite hit on the 'how'

DGI +1

Okay, so you make that feather into a spiral, and loop the end around the pencil. This now looks a bit a corkscrew, I think.


Geggs