Poll: When physics fails in real life.

[FalloutJack]

So, you know how in a game, the physics of the world sometimes crap out on you somehow and something goes wildly, hilariously, tragically, or all-of-the-above wrong? This happens in real life too. Sometimes, Object A doesn't want to adhere to Physical Law B, which leads you to C (which is cussing). Anything from something falling the wrong way to impossible accidental Rube Goldberg level mishaps.

Right off the bat, my first issue is fishing line and, in fact, any sort of wires or strings and whatnot that can tangle in knots. I've had to deal with these, being very good at undoing knots, and what I can tell you is that it should not be physically possible for any accidental or unseen action like keeping yout clip-on headphones in your pocket to cause a seven-phase knot to occur. No accidental cast into a bush with your rod or something similar should do this either, but they happen somehow. The laws of physics do not allow for the creation of the Gordion Knot under accidental conditions, but by all laws of man, I could rule all of Greece and beyond with the stuff I've had to deal with.

NEXT!

 

[Someone Depressing]

When I'm walking past the oven, it should not rattle to remind me how much I weigh.

It doesn't have to rub it in. =

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I've tried it in real life, it totally works.
I don't feel like it should, but it does.

 

[Racecarlock]

Black holes are essentially holes in physics, reality, time, space, and everything really. I guess you could say they're the ultimate physics glitch.

 

[Realitycrash]

I've tried it in real life, it totally works.
I don't feel like it should, but it does.

Was it hard to balance?

 

[SnowyGamester]

it should not be physically possible for any accidental or unseen action like keeping yout clip-on headphones in your pocket to cause a seven-phase knot to occur.

Just as an aside, you may want to look into putting your headphone cable into a retractor. I butchered one of these [http://www.ebay.com/itm/360730996764] and put my Sony earbuds into them and it works great, though probably not ideal for ones with particularly thick wire.

 

[FalloutJack]

I've tried it in real life, it totally works.
I don't feel like it should, but it does.

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

it should not be physically possible for any accidental or unseen action like keeping yout clip-on headphones in your pocket to cause a seven-phase knot to occur.

Just as an aside, you may want to look into putting your headphone cable into a retractor. I butchered one of these [http://www.ebay.com/itm/360730996764] and put my Sony earbuds into them and it works great, though probably not ideal for ones with particularly thick wire.

I don't use earbuds. Too much wax, never stay in right, and thoroughly uncomfortable to me. I meant clip-on headphones that are like actual headphones (and not earphones), but they clip on.

 

[Thammuz]

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

It works because the center of mass is actually under the shelf. The hammer head is so heavy, relatively to the rest of the contraption, that it can hold the rest of the stuff into place.

 

[Trivun]

I've had the cable thing happen to me before, but there is actually a scientific explanation that Cracked mentioned a while back. It's all to do with knot theory, which is a branch of maths dedicated to the study of knots in a mathematical sense, and they found that when you have wires or cables piled or looped in any way the structure is very unstable, and as soon as it's moved it can automatically tangle. The more points of contact there are, the more chances there are for the instability to cause tangling and create knots and such. Yep, maths has screwed us over yet again...

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Was it hard to balance?

Not really, the only tricky part is finding the sweet spot where everything, well, balances.

I've tried it in real life, it totally works.
I don't feel like it should, but it does.

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

I don't know how it works exactly, something about centers of mass and the hammer pushing against the ruler, this, that, the other thing.
I don't know, this can explain it better than I can.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bring-science-home-hammer-ruler-balance

You could just try it yourself, you know. Come on, a hammer, a ruler, a think rubber band, you gotta have those lying around, give it a shot.

 

[SnowyGamester]

I don't use earbuds. Too much wax, never stay in right, and thoroughly uncomfortable to me. I meant clip-on headphones that are like actual headphones (and not earphones), but they clip on.

They should still have a comparable cable. Did the same thing on my old KOSS clip-ons before my current earbuds ->check 'em [http://postimg.org/image/pq1dcuumr/]<- and it worked well there too however they didn't fully retract without some manual winding due to the absurdly long cable...unfortunately they just didn't have enough isolation or weren't loud enough to listen in a noisy environment. That and they made my ears hurt like balls if I wore them for too long. But yeah earbuds are pretty gross so I usually clean out the rubbers after I use them - I sure as heck wouldn't use any with fabric covers or without any kind of removable exterior. I imagine they'd get nasty.

 

[FalloutJack]

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

It works because the center of mass is actually under the shelf. The hammer head is so heavy, relatively to the rest of the contraption, that it can hold the rest of the stuff into place.

Thing about it is, it doesn't look like it is - for instance - preventing the ruler from succumbing to normal gravity. Is the claw of the hammer against the wall at all, or in fact the other end of the ruler? Or are they actually just suspended? It's hard to tell.

I've had the cable thing happen to me before, but there is actually a scientific explanation that Cracked mentioned a while back. It's all to do with knot theory, which is a branch of maths dedicated to the study of knots in a mathematical sense, and they found that when you have wires or cables piled or looped in any way the structure is very unstable, and as soon as it's moved it can automatically tangle. The more points of contact there are, the more chances there are for the instability to cause tangling and create knots and such. Yep, maths has screwed us over yet again...

Looped, yes. I can understand that. The wrong flick of the wrist can tangle your reel on the inside easy. However, some of the other shit that goes on, I question the possibility of. You have two ends with significant masses of something or other on them which would make knotting harder. (Taking for instance my headphones and MP3 player in this case.) Tangling them into anything but a slipknot affair should not be possible without effort. It does it anyway.

You could just try it yourself, you know. Come on, a hammer, a ruler, a think rubber band, you gotta have those lying around, give it a shot.

Maybe later, when I wanna catch that pesky Road Runner.

Koss

Generally, that's what I'm using right now and, in fact, have another waiting in wings when this one eventually wears out somehow. What you have there is not a standard earbud case, so where exactly do you find one like that?

 

[Pinkamena]

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

It works because the center of mass is actually under the shelf. The hammer head is so heavy, relatively to the rest of the contraption, that it can hold the rest of the stuff into place.

Thing about it is, it doesn't look like it is - for instance - preventing the ruler from succumbing to normal gravity. Is the claw of the hammer against the wall at all, or in fact the other end of the ruler? Or are they actually just suspended? It's hard to tell.

"Normal gravity"? It's a stable system with its center of mass below the shelf. This is basic mechanics. If you've seen those plastic birds that can balance on their beak, it's the same principle.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Explain this one to me, Ex-Ord. You sayin' this hammer is attached to a ruler via rubber band which is held slightly onto a board (probably a shelf) and ummm...thin air? Come on. You can't be serious.

It works because the center of mass is actually under the shelf. The hammer head is so heavy, relatively to the rest of the contraption, that it can hold the rest of the stuff into place.

Thing about it is, it doesn't look like it is - for instance - preventing the ruler from succumbing to normal gravity. Is the claw of the hammer against the wall at all, or in fact the other end of the ruler? Or are they actually just suspended? It's hard to tell.

I've not tried it myself, but it looks to me like the handle end of the hammer is in contact with the ruler. The rubber band is acting as a pivot point, so as the heavy side goes down, the handle side is pushed up. Meaning that the ruler is being held "up" by two points, the handle of the hammer and the edge of the shelf/desk/whatever.

 

[Alcamonic]

I am partly convinced the wheels on my chair home some form of miniature blackhole which sole purpose is to suck in cables.
I do however not dare to put my finger in there to check. What if I'm correct!?

 

[Generalissimo]

The armrests of my chair and my headphone cable appear to be magnetically connected as the always end up tangled

 

[Cowabungaa]

Black holes are essentially holes in physics, reality, time, space, and everything really. I guess you could say they're the ultimate physics glitch.

Actually, you're sort of wrong, and the right answer is, in a way, even more of a physics glitch.

Because black holes aren't holes, they're frighteningly dense, collapsed stars. They're objects so heavy that even light can't escape their gravitational pull. Everything just gets pulled into them and, well, what happens then I don't know. I guess mass is just added to it but light? I wonder what sort of theories are wandering around about that. Safe to say is though that they're REALLY weird. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/30/ten-things-you-dont-know-about-black-holes/]

 

[The Funslinger]

I once fell forward on skis.

I'll just leave you to think about that for a moment.

 

[Bravo Company]

Black holes are essentially holes in physics, reality, time, space, and everything really. I guess you could say they're the ultimate physics glitch.

Actually, you're sort of wrong, and the right answer is, in a way, even more of a physics glitch.

Because black holes aren't holes, they're frighteningly dense, collapsed stars. They're objects so heavy that even light can't escape their gravitational pull. Everything just gets pulled into them and, well, what happens then I don't know. I guess mass is just added to it but light? I wonder what sort of theories are wandering around about that. Safe to say is though that they're REALLY weird. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/30/ten-things-you-dont-know-about-black-holes/]

You can get into some interesting theories about black holes. Hawking Radiation is also created by black holes, which breaks the law of conservation of energy. That's all theoretical quantum stuff tho, so its prolly best not to think too hard about it. Then when you mix string theory with black holes, its theorized that everything that passes the event horizon (from our perspective) is stretched out across the surface of the black hole and.....yeeeaaaahhh, there's a whole bunch of stuff about black holes. I had to write a 10 page paper for my physics class about them. But what is truly terrifying is rogue black holes, they're black holes that get sent flying through space at unfathomable speeds. They're just going around noming everything in range.

Back OT: I'm pretty sure my entire house defies the law of conservation of mass when it comes to guitar picks. They're just on my desk/amp then they disappear never to be seen again.

 

[FalloutJack]

If you've seen those plastic birds that can balance on their beak, it's the same principle.

I have not.

Black holes are essentially holes in physics, reality, time, space, and everything really. I guess you could say they're the ultimate physics glitch.

Actually, you're sort of wrong, and the right answer is, in a way, even more of a physics glitch.

Because black holes aren't holes, they're frighteningly dense, collapsed stars. They're objects so heavy that even light can't escape their gravitational pull. Everything just gets pulled into them and, well, what happens then I don't know. I guess mass is just added to it but light? I wonder what sort of theories are wandering around about that. Safe to say is though that they're REALLY weird. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/30/ten-things-you-dont-know-about-black-holes/]

If we want to get into a debate about it, I actually have a theory involving black holes as being important to the death and rebirth of the universe. Stephen Hawking might disagree, but hey, he's a genius. Let 'im. Now, the things that they do to their surroundings is pretty fucked up