Water Flows Uphill

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC are reporting James Dyson's new garden feature, a waterfall with water flowing uphill. Apparently, he wanted to recreate an Escher drawing."

Comments

I want one on my desk :-)

[newsdee]

That would look really cool if it was a small widget-type zen thing, so I can have one on my desk to contemplate while trying to be inspired. :-)

i have previously achieved this same illusion

[Miguel de Icaza]

but using a different technique. I used a strobe on a small waterfall in a dark room- this works in the same way you can sometimes see car wheels spinning in the wrong dirrection.

When i saw dysons outdoor version while touring the flower show I hoped he had somehow used lasers to implement the strobe technique outdoors in full daylight - that would be cool. But no he is just using pumped air - no surprise really considering hes a vacuum genius :^)

Obligatory POV-Ray Reference!

[PovRayMan]

Check this animation out from an old IRTC round.

http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/2000-07-15/h20fa ll.mpg

(setting up a BT would nice for this so IRTC.ORG doesn't get bandwidth destroyed. I'd do it, but I should be really studying for final exams :-) )

Notes
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/2000-07-15/h20fa ll.txt
Comments
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/2000-07-15/comme nts/h20fall.comments

From here

http://www.irtc.org/anims/2000-07-15.html

All credit for the animation goes to Joe Wise.

This Bring Back Fond Memories...

[istartedi]

This brings back fond memories of an illusion I first saw when I was a kid. I saw it in Springfield Mall. It was put on by a plumbing contractor, or a hot tub installer, or somebody like that.

It was a faucet, seemingly suspended in mid-air, with an endless supply of water coming from it.

I marvelled at it for several minutes, pondering how it could be done, yet my child's mind, while knowing it wasn't real, was beyond fathoming any art or science that could accomplish this.

Leaning closer to inspect it, my suspicions were aroused by the strange apparatus in the catch basin, but I still needed a full explanation from an adult:

All you do is run a pipe up to the faucet. The pipe supports the faucet. The faucent contains a concavity that directs the water to flow in a hollow cylinder that hides the pipe and completes the illusion.

You can buy table-top models of this, with yellow-dyed water flowing into a mug of beer.

Kudos to this guy though, for taking the concept and wedding it to Escher in a novel way.

Re:Uphill water flow at Disneyworld since 1971..

[anethema]

I always thought the most famous of these things was at the bay of Fundy. The level of the tide rises higher than the river level and causes REAL uphill rapids, and a semi illusionary uphill waterfall.

I havent seen it myself, but I understand its quite a mind bender to see.

There is also an optical illusion near there in..Moncton i think? You go to the base of the hill, put your car in neutral, and your car will roll up the hill. Its an optical illusion, you are actually rolling downhill, but you look and it looks uphill, no amount of thinking its downhill dispells that.

Some very neet stuff, and example of an Eschery world in real life.