Silly Question of the Day

I think forever, if the slinky's "step" perfectly matched the escalator's tread width and it "descended" in a straight line. The respective timings would also need to match. In practice, this is probably not attainable, but it would be fun to hear what the record is for the most consecutive slinky steps.

Do you mean this? If synchronized to the escalator speed forever. Silly answer of the day. S.M.

I think I might be starting to get old.............I remember those commercials well.

I found that the most useful and fun application for the Slinky was tangling it up in my sister's hair. It would keep her occupied for hours.

He wasn't very careful. No wonder it didn't work!

What are you sorry for? That's funny

I wanted it to work.

Unlikely, as they only work when the treads are 'pitch width' (narrow) and dead level, or sloped 'pro-slinky'

Escalators would be too wide and the treads tend to slope 'anti-slinky'. Meaning even a giant slinky may not work.

It's been said that some people are like Slinkys - pretty useless, but fun to push down stairs.

Did anyone look here as it would seem that a lot of people have been thinking along the same lines:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIPK2NQ85Fc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASxPwiZOlPE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJw0L7fxbF4

Déja vu:-

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/38699/The-Slinky-vs-The-Escalator

Silly answer: It appears that if you had a VFD on your escalator and a large blue-green-yellow-pink slinky (like the fedora wearer had) you could make it slink as long as the guy watching the VFD could stay awake and make the appropriately necessary adjustments.

Perpetual Motion Machine? Definitely not. The motor on the escalator and Gravity add power to the spring as it continually falls shedding that energy. Really not even an efficient machine, unless you look at it from the point that the escalator probably would run all day, anyway, and if the store ran a promotion where they asked the public to come in and watch how long the slinky could continue to work (AND presumably buy stuff they didn't need while there).

Silly question of the day for tomorrow: Would the guy running the VFD for the escalator have to continually tweak the speed up to continually escalate the power input to make up for the inherent energy losses of operation?

The slinky has to move downward faster than the escalator moves upward

Why do you say that?

The escalator is continuously giving the spring more potential energy by lifting the two "relatively" stationary ends.

Oops, too early in the morning before my first coffee. (Somehow I was thinking that if the slinky stayed level, it would be like walking across a horizontal floor.)

(Same reply to Andy's subsequent post.)

Why?

One of the YouTube links I posted showed one basically staying in the same place!!!

Best use for a slinky is as an antenna! Amateur Radio Operators have done it on several frequencies!

An interesting tidbit about the birth of the slinky.

http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/slinky.htm