Comments on: Balance art

By: model_1066

model_1066 — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 03:09:30 +0000

At least his art supplies don’t cost very much! Better to have a hippie balancing rocks in a river than an arrogant asshole like Christo putting crap over it.

By: southpaw

southpaw — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 19:06:46 +0000

A trick in my opinion. The center of gravity of the large rock would seem to be left of the center axis of the balance line, or maybe that’s the illusion. Adding to Physics guy, pre-treatment must also include finding a rock where the center of gravity is a lot lower than you think from that angle..
The rock fell forward, which wasn’t what you would expect from looking at Grabby’s pile, but we can only see 2 dimensions in the video.

I’m with Doom. A nitwit standing in a river playing with rocks isn’t Leonardo or Rembrandt.

By: Autist

Autist — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 18:02:57 +0000

Of what use is ballet? It’s beautiful.

By: Roy

Roy — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 16:12:51 +0000

The guy’s a plumber by trade. He does the balancing act as a diversion, and is very good at it.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 14:16:09 +0000

Good thing he wore the right shirt. Right?

By: physicsguy

physicsguy — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 13:14:02 +0000

For equilibrium, Sum of forces = 0 AND the sum of torques = 0 Everything looked OK until the last rock. In terms of forces, he has all the rocks weights aligned along a single axis, this eliminates torques from the normal force which is the reaction force to the rock weights.

If you then estimate where the center of mass is for each rock, he then is balancing the torques due to the center of mass and gravity by alternating the sides the CM are on. It’s the last rock I question. To have that rock balance on a point like that is not impossible, but is an example of a highly unstable equilibrium situation. I would bet $10 he “pretreated” the rock below the last one and drilled out a indentation to set the point in. But then I’m just a grumpy old white guy, so I’m probably wrong.

By: Maquis

Maquis — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:35:43 +0000

People do weird cool worthless stuff, doesn’t mean they aren’t otherwise engaged in self-supporting socially acceptable work. Doesn’t look like he’s just come back from burning down the ‘hood in any case.

By: Doom

Doom — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 06:15:58 +0000

Joe,

Piss off. I said what I said and meant it. You idealists are the problem, not the solution.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:12:53 +0000

I think it is great. A seemingly impossible balancing of stones.

Useful? Are crossword puzzles useful, or painting landscapes, or many other diversions of humans.

Doom: You are certainly arrogant to make your judgements of the man with no evidence, go away and scowl in your mirror.

By: Ed Bonderenka

Ed Bonderenka — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 02:28:33 +0000

Doom: Someone had to say it.