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Bouncing UK Children Cause Earthquake
Xibalba writes: "This is kinda cool. One million children in the UK jumped up and down simultaneously in an attempt to see what would seismically happen." This cries out to become an annual (and international) all-ages event. Bounce! Bounce! Gain weight! Bounce! Repeat.
of a scene from "Pay It Forward" where a student suggests changing the world through a website instructing kids in china to jump at the same time and thus divert the earth off its orbit...
Didn't think anybody would take this seriously, though...
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Just let Steve Ballmer jump around a little again.
Isn't it a bit irresposible of those scientists? What if they have made a real big earthquake with damage and such? Shouldn't they be a bit more resposible?
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Enuf said...
do it for the children!
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Well, it wasn't noted who said it, but if I had to venture a guess, I'd say Ruri Hushino. Definitely.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
See, the children were in elementary school, which is a higher education than the journalist had.
Early estimates suggested 75,000 tons of energy had been released during the minute of jumping.
This was brought up a good number of years ago in The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams. Somebody had asked (roughly) "If everyone in China jumped off a chair at the same time, what would happen?". Cecil then layed the Straight Dope out for them. Just thought I'd point out the obvious. :^)
"!ekoj on si aixelsyD" - Me
Scientists said a million children with an average weight of 110 pounds jumping 20 times in a minute would release two billion joules of energy and trigger the equivalent of an earthquake measuring three on the Richter scale.
So, Chinese would be very easy to collapse the whole world. Gather all their people and make them jump just like that of the experiment! It will create a 3600 Richter earthquake! I've never heard of earthquake with scale 10 or greater. Scale 9 is devastating enough to destroy several counties.
The hypothesis is invalid, I guess.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Had to check my calendar, with a weirdo article like this, though.
Guess this is what the Brits do on Friday when they run out of real science to do.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
But drop that in one spot and it would have caused quite a big hole in the ground
They aren't actually suggesting that all of Britain's children be dropped in one spot to see how big a hole they'll make, are they?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
they would have one hell of a mess to clean up then!
WOW! "Early estimates suggested 75,000 tons of energy had been released during the minute of jumping." Couldn't they capture that energy some how. Next time they peddle on exercise bikes that generate electricity and sell it to California. Heck why don't California schools put every kid on a exercise bike for full length of a class period while at school. Physical Ed. is covered and California's energy crisis is cured!
Just an everyday guy....nothing special
I remember years ago one of the Australian national radio stations, 3JJJ, tried to get everyone Australia wide to do the same. Everyone was to jump for five minutes at a set time on what was termed 'J-Day'. I can't recall the estimates on the number of jumpers, not more than some thousands I would guess, but I remember that not much happened.
This concept could easily be put to immensely destructive use. Think about it. Have a million, anti-m$ children march to the m$ headquarters in Seattle and stomp their legs off in a manner that ensures that the frequency of their hops matches the natural frequency of the m$ buildings. That way, resonance would be produced and *voila*, in a few minutes, the m$ campus would be reduced to rubble!
:-D
Anyone have an idea how much was spent by the British govt? Think we shd start the fund-raising soon.
Posting messages for the betterment of humanity..
did you take into account that the richter scale is non-linear, it's exponential. An earth quake of 4.1 is 10x the power of an earthquake @ 4.0
Photos.
Whiners in Califonia and other active areas can all get together to relieve the tension on a regular basis and lessen the damage of those pesky ground movements. The government can start a program to pay homeless and unemployed to jump at designated times and places. Some of the money could come from military budgets.
"Will jump for cash. My ankles are quite healthy."
Whew, thank God. When I read "Bouncing UK children" I thought they had been thrown out of the window or something!
Toto, this ain't the metric system anymore.
110 kilos or pounds? Is it just me, or are these school children like excessively obese?
I saw some of this on tv. The kids didn't actually jump simultaneously. That is, they weren't in synch as they jumped up and down. They did all start and stop at about the same time though, which is what they mean by simultaneous, I guess.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_155.html
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
Quoting from a website:In 1998, Primus were at Pinkpop, where they caused a small earthquake (1.2 Richter). That was a record. The band to surpass the record, which was done the same day, is Rage against the Machine.
Those kids could've learned something from those metalheads... they were actually jumping up and down to that music too!
(here) except that this actually worked.
And think about it, how cool would it be to be 6 years old, and tell your parents "You can't punish me, or I'll earthquake your room."
here in colorado USA they measured a 3.0 earthquake in the Trinidad region. Colorado has rare and usually never any serious earthquakes. The fact that trinidad near the arizona border had a small earthquake and this seem almost related. It would be funny if those kids did cause the quake here in colorado.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
We're British scientists. We don't need reasons to do things, just cool things to do.
-
The Lameness filter can filter this.
I believe they already do something like this in San Francisco every year.
On April 1st, some San Franciscans participate in the "Leap of Faith". Much of San Francisco is built on landfill (filled in ocean - not actually a garbage dump, I think). Anyway, everybody lines up on the "land" side of the dividing line, and at the same time they all jump and land on the other side. If half of San Francisco goes down the tubes... Pat Buchanan will probably call it "The wrath of God".
Aren't editors supposed to be impartial? What a joke. I encourage people to read at "-1" threshold if you are able to do so. Yes, you will encounter some garbage but you may also see some informative comments which have unfairly been slapped to "-1".
Instant access via his what ?
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
For those /.'ers who sneer at reading linked articles the kids just went out and jumped about for a minute. No attempt at synchronization beyond a wall clock and some teacher calling out "OK Luvvies - jump about now!" There wasn't even an attempt to get the kids on a beat (apparently BBC1 couldn't be persuaded to play Queen's "We Will Rock You" at the right time ;-)
However as directly useless as this may be to science it's doubtless opened the eye's of Britians youth to what promises to be only the first of the many pointless exercises they will be required to go through in their lives, always a lesson worth learning.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
NASA fired up the space shuttle's rockets to see if it would stay in the same spot and blow the earth out of orbit...
When I was a child, I often thought of what would occur if a huge number of people jumped simultaneously, but I never really thought it would happen. Apparently, though, if you have a PhD in Physics and a little notebook of all your kiddy schemes, then you can have them carried out as "research". Can't wait to see what will be in the news next. Im guessing something where we see what will happen if everyone in the world flushes their toilets simultaneously. Will this cause the polar caps melt, or the oceans to drain? Find out on yahoo! (or slashdot)
I was listening to NPR last night, they were interviewing one of these scientists. Said he got the idea from an Oasis concert, guess people miles away were calling about an earthquake from all the fans jumping up and down. The vibrations could be felt farther away than the music could be heard. Kinda cool.
Dude, you ever heard of metric ton?
metric ton n. Abbr. m.t., M.T.
A unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds).
-- source: The American Heritage Dictionary
When I was a boy the goverment stole everything from us.
Everyone now, ready, set, go!
Fucking Funny!
You will deposit exactly $100,000,000,000 in the Bank of Erehwon by noon on the last day of September 2001!
If you fail in this, we shall ship all our children to your countries, hopped up on sugar and caffiene, and instruct them to jump up and down.
They will do this in one major city EACH DAY, until our demands ar met!
Ignore us at your own peril!
[Note for the terminally humor impaired] The preceeding was an attempt at HUMOR. Commonly known as a JOKE.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Reminds me of:
1) the effect when thousands of soldiers crossing a bridge intentionally fall out of step to avoid setting up sympathetic vibrations in the bridge, thus collapsing it (which used to be a real problem before they figured out the cause!)
2) for the Chinese scanario: instead of having them all jump off a chair in their homes, line them up on the shoreline and have them dive in to the surf simultaneously - possibly setting up a tseunami heading eastward.
Did they think that no matter how many people they got that it wouldn't happen?
How como nobody have mentioned The great dinosaur robbery, where lots of secret agents (and a posse of elite nannies) go after chinese plans to "jump down"? Imagine, if 3 million english schoolchildren can create one/hundredth of a earthquake, what could half a billion of chinese people do? Create a couple of earthquakes? Problem is, they would probable only hurt themselves...
It's just a BloJJ
That the Clinton administration allowed defense secrets to be leaked or stolen. Next thing you know, there will be a squabble over Hong Kong or Taiwan, and the chinese will jump not for a minute, but for an entire half hour, unleashing a tsunami that will destroy the west coast of the US. This may be your final warning*, evacuate California immediately!!
*Redmond, Washington residents, you have nothing to fear. Don't panic, and don't leave your homes and businesses *cough* to be looted by suicidal vandals and thieves.
...but "Insightful"?'
What's up with the moderators today? The ecstacy is still in effect since last nights rave?
plz correct!..
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
But in the years since, the seismograph has fallen to the budget axe, and Tiger Stadium has been expanded to hold over 90,000. So if a "squeaker" of a game like that ever was to happen again, the resulting earthquake may topple the Louisiana state capitol building and ring bells in Alabama, but no one on campus will know how strong it was...
This sounds similar to the theoretical experiments that a physics prof talked about in class once...
"What if everyone in town flushed their toilets at exactly the same time. Given a capacity of X per toilet, and Y for the water towers, calculate the draining effect on the water towers..."...
Thank god they wern't NASA scientists- they would have gotten metric and imperial confused and god knows where the mars polar lander would have la-.. I mean god knows how much of an earthquake it would have caused.
Fear is for lesser scientists. Next week we're bussing the kids to a local bridge and having them jump in synch.
Because we all know that the average american schoolkid weighs more than the average adult in the rest of the world.
Surely for the restaging next year we should get BBC Radio 1,2,4 and 5 to simulcast Gabby Roslin or Chris Moyles introducing a classic Status Quo number which everyone is to pogo about and air guitar to for a minute.
Get everyone in time with the radio and I'm sure the effect will be much better. This attempt musn't have been significantly different from that found every day at 3:30 when the schools kick out!
Get everyone Rocking All Over The World (although I'd prefer Down Down myself!) and I'll bet we could cause a tsunami!
Let's hope China will not try to beat this "unofficial record". I just paid mortgage for my house !!!
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On scale from -14 to 56 this post is '-15, Nonexistent'
I think you are also confusing the two scales used to rate the power of an earthquake.
The richter scale is used for the intensity, whereas the other scale(i think it is called mohs?) is used for the damage caused by the earthquake for the area.
This can be seen when an earthquake occurs in an area that does not have many earthquakes. Because the buildings aren't earthquake resistant, and people don't have contingency plans the actual damage to property and life is gretaer.(ie high on moh, low on richter).
The opposite can occur in earthquake resistant areas, where buildings are made to survive earthquakes, and children are trained for earthquake procedures.(ie high on richter, low on moh)
It has been years since I studied geology, but as far I remember, thats how it works.
From The Straight Dope: If all Chinese jumped at once, would cataclysm result?l
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_155.htm
Yes, but the metric ton (1000 kg) is a unit of mass, not energy. For energy, we usually use Joules (kg * (m/s)^2). Occasionnally, older units are used in certain contexts: kilocalories (food), kilowatthours (electricity), etc.
How long could a jump earthquake last? Once it go really going it would be centered on the jumpers themselves.
Careful what you wish for pudgy english children.
But I've also heard the (thought) experiment that if all of Earth's population decided to jump on one side of the Earth, that they'd knock it out of its orbit.
;-P.
Interesting way to perform stellar engineering...global warming? Nah, let's knock back the earth from the Sun a few hundred thousand miles
Try to make a natural disaster occur. I say everybody in midwest america has a "SPIN AROUND IN CIRCLES" next year, and we all attempt to make a shit load of tornados..
For our next big event, on signal, lets all simultaneously:
1) flush toilets
2) pick up a telephone handset
3) switch on a large electrical appliance
4) call for Chinese take out delivery
5) withdraw funds from the bank
6) visit the same web site
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Some of the kids in my old highschool organized the following:
All toilets were flushed on the final note of the national anthum.
Didn't actually make anything explode as hoped, but it did back up the plumbing for about half a day.
-Fantastic Lad
This story reminded me of Tesla's Earthquake machine which, if you believe the stories, demonstrates just how much damage you can inflict when you hit the resonant frequency with a modest amount of power.
Exactly what do they think they mean by 75,000 tons of energy? Do they mean
<sarcasm>
Gosh, I do so love reporters and editors who are right on top of sceince <sic>
</sarcasm>
www.eFax.com are spammers
...the fat kid was the hero of the day.
2) pick up a telephone handset - January 1, 2000, 12:01 AM
5) withdraw funds from the bank - December 31, 1999, 11:30 PM
6) visit the same web site - February 7, 2000, 18:30 GMT, yahoo.com
Now can we knock down 1) 3) 4) in another 2-month period?
Elsewhere around the world, the Weekly World News is still reporting that the chineese are going to drive their cars all in the same direction at the same time in order to change the rotation of the earth. Apparently the Russians are planning on flushing their toilets all at the same time in hopes that the rotation of the water in the toilets will send the earth plumetting into the cosmos.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
i seem to recall a nice story about a uni student calculating the resonant frequency of an office building - and putting the information into effect. apparntly the sharking was visible...
Are we sure that the readings they were getting weren't just from the guys manning the sensor stations? They're pretty close to those machines, after all. A little hopping on their part would probably have more influence on the machine than people far away.
And they're probably big people, watching the seismometer doesn't exactly burn calories...
or maybe not
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
This is yet another crazy idea becoming reality from The Book "Zittergas und schräges Wasser" the german translation of "The inventions of daedalus". Although all ideas seem to bee completely nonsense i had to see more and more of them become reality. Football molecules are now quite common, bacterie with raincoats have as well been a headline in my newspaper's science section. Now Earthquakes caused by jumping children! What comes next?
Jones used to write his collum for new science, he now writes for Nature (www.nature.com) Unluckily the articles are online but need to be purchased. Manybe somebody knows where we can find an online version? Maybe of the very old Ideas?
Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, there was a "prediction" that there would be a great earthquake to hit the Mississippi River valley. (I think it was predicted for an intercontinental plate line running near St. Louis.)
Anyhow, during the week or so of hyped-up media coverage (slow news week?), there were several "Fat is Beautiful"-type groups (and maybe a few weight-loss groups, too, I don't remember) that all decided to stand on the fault line and jump in unison, to get the big earthquake started. The earthquake never happened, but...
-mrv
And if those schoolchildren were synchronized, the effect could have been much greater and actually have lead to some science being done, instead of a Bill Nye the Science Guy type of discovery.
The chinese and indian schoolchildren could destroy Britain.
Mass and energy are interchangeable. E=mc^2 'n' all that. Fortunately for us those jumping kids caused a mini-black hole that swallowed them up otherwise there'd be nothing left of the Earth or the Moon after a 75,000 ton energy burst...
-- SIGFPE
http://www.knmi.nl/onderzk/seismo/home_n/educat
It a graph made by the seismological depertment of the Dutch meteorological institute during a concert at Pinkpop (also in the Netherlands). It is the result of a few hundred thousand people jumping to the beat of Faithless. As the frequency graph shows, the energy is concentratad in a very narrow band. So all it takes is a pop-concert and a few specific tunes to bring down the object of your choice :)
- Nemosoft
"Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
"The main effect, I suspect, would be the ear-splitting shriek of one billion badly maimed Chinese".
Ours are so much fatter than the Brits', who knows what would have happened! (It's true, Americans are the fattest people on earth)
--hongpong.com
We don't need to fear the Brits. Its the Chinease we need to be afraid of. 1 Billion people jumping in sync would throw the earth would be much worse.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
" Bounce! Bounce! Gain weight! Bounce! Repeat. "
Now who in God's unholy name put this stupid fucking bullshit ? What is wrong with you ? Dipshit assface dildo breathed redneck. What kind of fucking twit are you?
Jesus, the lameness wreaks.
Check out the Centre for Disease Control's Height Weight charts. Particularly the explanitory notes. They used the old weights because American kids were getting fatter. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/nhanes/gcrevis ion.htm
Sometimes the effects are unintentional.
:-) I don't know which song it was but my money is on "Too many puppies" or "My name is mud" :)
Rock concerts have long been known to cause noticable seismic effects.
Here in the Netherlands there's this festival called Pinkpop where they (well some seismic center near there) once noted a 1.0 quake on the Richter scale during a rage against the machine concert in 1994. Not caused by the music but by people ritmically jumping around.
I wasn't there then.
I was there 4 years later though when Primus broke that record and set a whopping 1.2 on the Richter scale.
That was cool
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
We get very small quakes in northern NJ (USA) depending on the depth you might feel them. A 2.2 2.6 hit just recently and was very shallow, shook some glasses in the wash rack
a 3.? hit north of my house not to long ago and split the foundation of my car port.
-Michael
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Yep, that has to be one of the funniest things I've read for a while. Now why didn't the Skylarov demonstrators think of that? The US Embassy in London could be a pile of rubble now..
mogorific carpentry experiments
* g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *
g g
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t| `. | | : t
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1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
You should have linked in the Millenium bridge over the Thames instead of the Tahoma narrows... :-)
And gasp if you ever get signal *and your friend* simultaneously gets signal on their phone; they may be on another network also...
Hence the wonders of texting - it will attempt to deliver the message when a slot comes free
"I'm left of the main stage. Where R U? Meet you at bungie jump at 6pm."
I've always wondered if all drivers in the world faced their vehicles in an easterly direction and all slammed on the gas at the same time, could they affect a change in the Earth's rotation?
They aren't actually suggesting that all of Britain's children be dropped in one spot to see how big a hole they'll make, are they?
Of course not, but some Mr. Swift has a plan for Irish children...
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu