

Bouncing UK Children Cause Earthquake 221
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.
This reminds me (Score:1)
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...
Ah, they jumped voluntarily? (Score:3, Funny)
I remember one time when. . . (Score:2, Funny)
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
The same effect could be had easier (Score:4, Funny)
They actually succeeded... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:They actually succeeded... (Score:4, Informative)
They were expecting the jumping to be equivalent to about a magnitude 3 earthquake on the Richter scale which is a common seismic event that shows up on seismographs but which people can't even detect. A significant quake will be more like a 5 or higher on the Richter scale. This scale is logarithmic so a 4 is actually 10 times more powerful than a 3, and a 5 is 10 times a 4.
Thus the scientists would have to have been mistaken about the impact of all that jumping by a factor of 100 to actually rattle people. Any scientist worth his salt ought to be able to estimate the effect of what he's doing more precisely than 2 orders of magnitude, especially if it might be dangerous for him to be wrong.
Note: The 10 times factor applies to wave amplitude, energy content scales by about 10*Sqrt(10) or 31 times from one level to the next.
NASA And Falling objects.... (Score:1)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
-
The Lameness filter can filter this.
Re:They actually succeeded... (Score:1)
Responsibility? (Score:2)
Re:They actually succeeded... (Score:4, Redundant)
Lord Richter: "Do not be so proud of these children you've instructed; the power of one million bouncing children is insignificant next to the power of the Force..."
Commander of Child-Powered Earthquake Machine: "You don't frighten us with your scientist's ways, Lord Richter. Your sad devotion to that ancient profession has not helped you conjure up new fault lines, or given you clairvoyance enough to--urk! Ack! Ick! Urg!"
Prime Minister Tarkin: "Enough of this! Richter, stop jumping up and down on him!"
Lord Richter: "As you wish..."
Re:They actually succeeded... (Score:2)
Bush Energy Plan (Score:2, Troll)
China's Doomdsay Weapon (Score:5, Funny)
Sprained ankles are painful (Score:1)
Well, it wasn't noted who said it, but if I had to venture a guess, I'd say Ruri Hushino. Definitely.
Elementary school (Score:3, Funny)
Early estimates suggested 75,000 tons of energy had been released during the minute of jumping.
Re:Elementary school (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Elementary school (Score:1)
Re:Elementary school (Score:2)
Y'know, maybe those kids who thought the Earth would shatter aren't so stupid after all, if they relied on that figure. After all, they might have assumed that the idiot journo in question was talking about the mass-equivalent of the energy released, plugged it into e=mc^2, and got...well, a pretty respectable bignum.
Re:Elementary school (Score:2)
If the moon were summarily dropped on the Earth from it's current distance it would release 4.5e30 J of energy. It's commonly believed that the moon was created by a massive collision with a perhaps Mars sized body early in the solar system's existence. This would require even more energy than what would be released by bringing down the moon. Thus the Earth, as a huge chunk of rock orbiting the sun, would survive.
Whether people, or any life, survive all depends on how it is released. For instance the energy processed by a hurricane can be in the 10s of exajoules per day. The Krakatowa volcano explosion registered about 0.2 exajoules in a matter of moments, and had a major impact on that part of the world back in the 19th century.
Consequence? (Score:1)
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.
Re:Consequence? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, except the Richter scale is logaritmic. So a Richter 4 is 10 times as strong as a Richter 3. So to cause a Richter 10, 10^7 * 1M people would need to be bouncing up and down.
Re:Consequence? (Score:5, Informative)
an earthquake of 10 is not just 1 notch above an earthquake of 9. It's 10 times more powerful.
From http://www.everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=51531
Listing is: Richter Scale # - Amount great than Richter Scale of 1 - info
1 1 no noticeable effects...detected only by seismographs
2 10 only slightly noticeable even if close to epicenter
3 100
4 1,000 slight damage near the epicenter
5 10,000
6 100,000 moderate destruction
7 1,000,000 severe destruction
8 10,000,000 one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded
Re:Consequence? (Score:1)
http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/WORLD/1
bad URL (Score:1)
Re:bad URL (Score:1)
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/WORLD/1960_05
Re:Consequence? (Score:2)
Wow, those are some powerful Jalepenos!
Scales... (Score:1)
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.
Re:Scales... (Score:1)
Mercalli-Sieberg (at least that's what we learnt at school)
Re:Scales... (Score:2)
"tall girls can flirt and other queer things can do"
bit like "cockney old sod did contract penis tumors juggling cold testicles quickly"
(cambrian, ordovician, sillurian, devonian, carbiniferous, p-something, tirassic, jurrasic, creatceous, tertiary, quaternary)
Re:Consequence? (Score:1)
Re:Consequence? (Score:2)
Okay everyone, let's destroy our homeland in order to break some windows belonging to those no good foreign devils.
Re:Consequence? (Score:2)
If you timed everyone's jump well enough you could make it so that the small vibrations from each individual jump would propagate out of China and all arrive at an outside target at the same time, without any destructive effect inside China.
Think of it this way: if you had 1000 people drop drops of water into a swimming pool at the same time, and all the drops were on the edge of a circle, you could create a large disturbance in the center of the circle that would be bigger than the disturbance at the drops themselves.
Now pulling this off would require a fairly advanced model of wave propagation through the earth, as the wave velocity varies through different layers of the crust. You'd probably only be able to concentrate a fraction of the available energy that way. Actually you're guaranteed low efficiency by the laws of thermodynamics. But in principle, concentrating seismic waves is certainly doable. in fact I'm sure there has been some military research into concentrating the seismic waves from precisely timed explosions.
Re:Consequence? (Score:1)
Re:Consequence? (Score:1)
The solution - Why not try dropping a million kids from a few thousand feet up in a vacuum chamber and see if it has any effect.
Destroy the jumpers in the process (Score:2)
Careful what you wish for pudgy english children.
Re:Destroy the jumpers in the process (Score:1)
And if you drive south of here and cross the US border it extends to all age groups.
April Fools or British--you be the judge (Score:1)
Guess this is what the Brits do on Friday when they run out of real science to do.
WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
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?
A modest proposal (Score:2)
Of course not, but some Mr. Swift has a plan for Irish children...
California could learn from this experiment (Score:1)
Re:California could learn from this experiment (Score:1)
J-Day (Score:1)
Good story (Score:1)
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."
"Tons" of Energy? (Score:1)
Re:"Metric Tons" of Energy? (Score:1)
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.
Not really simultaneous (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not really simultaneous (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't simultaneously, otherwise the effects WOULD have definately been much greater.
There is a military command (I can't remember the exact order) given in a march that instructs marching soldiers to lose cadance when crossing a bridge. Failure to do so has been known to collapse bridges as the combined force of dozens of troops marching in unison is capable of creating a powerful ressonance.
Re:Not really simultaneous (Score:4, Interesting)
Has anyone heard of the Millennium bridge across the Thames in London? Pedestrian suspension bridge, kept in suspension sideways IIRC so no tall pillars or overhead cables. Problem was, it wobbled. It wasn't damped enough so could sway quite noticeably from side to side and was closed. There was then a controlled re-opening for people who knew full well it would wobble. They then realised they were going to have to have squads of staff to break up those maliciously walking in step and so amplifying any forces.
The problem, though, was that with the bridge wobbling sideways people were inevitably going to try and stabilise themselves so as not to collapse. So, as you feel a wobble sideways you brace yourself against it and so exert a sideways force on the bridge which makes it wobble in that direction... and you get the idea. Everyone quickly falls into step with each other, so amplifying the wobble...
Spot the problem.
Re:Not really simultaneous (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not really simultaneous (Score:1)
There was a more sophisticated idea by Daedalus (in Nature?) a few years ago; instead of jumping all together, phase the jumping spatially in order to direct the energy. By carefully controlling the order of jumps one can focus the resultant energy at any point around the earth - similar to phased array radars.
Should have just asked Cecil.. (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_155.html [straightdope.com]
Apple 380S GT? (Score:1, Troll)
Instant access via his what ?
W
Rock On! (Score:1)
Those kids could've learned something from those metalheads... they were actually jumping up and down to that music too!
reminds me of paint the moon (Score:2)
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."
Re:reminds me of paint the moon (Score:2)
Now, the question I pose is that if the light is so dispersed by the time it reaches the moon, couldn't you just point it in the general direction of the moon and have some miniscule fraction of the light reach it? Then with so many people contributing their tiny fraction, the net result might just be a noticeable effect.
However, depending how much the light is dispersed (presumably quite a bit) and how much light is absorbed by the time it reaches the moon (practically all of it), you'd probably need more than you and a couple of your buddies doing it.
Funny thing is (Score:1)
"Leap of Faith" (Score:1)
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".
Re:"Leap of Faith" (Score:1)
Yeah, right...
Re:"Leap of Faith" (Score:2)
("You left the keys in the car?"
("Ummm, yeah, see, 'cause I was only going in for a minute...")
As improbable as it seems, this would seem to me to be a classic Ummm situation:
"You destroyed half of San Francisco for a laugh!?"
"Ummm, well, yeah, but we didn't think it would ever really work...!"
To no use (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:To no use (Score:5, Insightful)
It also could have interested a few children in seismology, or science in general, and some of those children may grow up to become a world-reknowned scientist who discovers a way to accurately predict earthquakes, saving innumerable lives.
But it's much more fun to be jaded, isn't it?
Re:To no use (Score:2)
Well, the article in the "story" said that some people are going to be using the data to study how long vibrations move around in the crust of the earth, which I guess could provide some usefull data.
Little kids could have thought of this! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Little kids could have thought of this! (Score:3, Funny)
It was a while back...
Re:Little kids could have thought of this! (Score:1)
All this from an Oasis concert.... (Score:1)
Erehwon to the world! (Score:1)
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.
See also... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:See also... (Score:2)
Re:See also... (Score:2)
ROUTE STEP! That's it! I had forgotten!
No, it's not an urban legend. I remember seeing a Black and White video clip that was inserted into an instructional video where a bridge began bouncing to the point that soliders were falling down over themselves. Apparently, some weaker bridges HAVE collapsed or sustained damage, and thus ROUTE STEP was created out of necessity. I remember specifically the video said that while some well constructed modern bridges probably would not collapse, the order is to be given regardless as a matter of standard practice to prevent possible "bad judgement calls".
Re:See also... (Score:1)
http://www.3rdwisconsin.org/history/camp_hamilt
The third paragraph explains how route step came to be.
Re:See also... (Score:2)
you've written several confused posts now: you're on the right track but you've got the different concepts all muddled. it is not the strength of the bridge, nor is it the combined energy of the marchers, though those things do play a role.
What is important to the collapse is the undamped resonance of the bridge which stores the energy as it is added to the system.
Re:See also... (Score:1)
Tell that to Arup, Foster, and Caro. Although it didn't collapse, the so-called Millenium Bridge which they were responsible for over the Thames in London had to be closed to the public a day or so after being declared open because it swayed too much. That was in the middle of last year, and as far as I know it's still closed. Apparently one of its resonances was near enough to a multiple of average walking pace to cause trouble, and once the swaying started, people's reactions tended to syncronise their movements to the bridge's. They're talking about fitting expensive dampers - but perhaps a few retired army officers would do as well:
"Break step, you horrible little people! Break step, I say!"
There's more information about it all here [arup.com].
Re:See also... (Score:3, Interesting)
It did happen on April the 16th 1850 in France, when a troop crossed a suspension bridge durong a storm near Angers (the Basse-Chaine bridge, over the river Maine) causing 220 soldiers to drown.
There's a good sum up of the event here [www.cnam.fr] (in English)
The cause is supposed to be the addition of gusts of wind causing the bridge to sway, and the troop marching steps, all giving a phenomenon of resonance.
and it even was reported in the New york Herald at the time :
http://www.goodbyemag.com/may00/herald-deaths.htm
however, the causes are very similar to what happened to the Tacoma Narrows bridge, on nov 07 th 1940, catastrophic wind swaying.
I'm happy to share this part of my history,
Baz.
Re:See also... (Score:2)
I remember the KC collapse, although swaying to the music was news to me. IIRC, the design was fine, but the plans had been modified during construction, replacing one big continuous rod with two smaller rods in series. I particularly recall a friend of mine, then an engineering student close to graduation, proudly noting that the decision had apparently been made by a junior engineer, "just like me!" :)
The great dinosaur robbery (Score:1)
Infamous earthquake game at Death Valley (Score:3, Funny)
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...
RESTAGE with the QUO! (Score:1)
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!
Do not try this at home (Score:1)
Jumping Chinese question... (Score:1)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_155.htm
That's just a million... (Score:1)
Interesting way to perform stellar engineering...global warming? Nah, let's knock back the earth from the Sun a few hundred thousand miles
Re:That's just a million... (Score:2)
Well, I haven't checked the calculations, but even if this de-orbits Earth, it will return to its orbit when the people come down again. There's something called conservation of momentum to ensure this.
Re:That's just a million... (Score:2)
Also, the world would have to move tens of billions of miles for appreciable climate change. The earth already moves over a billion towards and away from the sun in its yearly irregular orbit. In fact, the northern hemisphere's winter takes place when the earth is one billion miles closer.
Re:That's just a million... (Score:2)
That's impressive considering the average radius of Earch's orbit is 96 MILLion miles.
Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:3, Interesting)
It didn't. It crashed not only the local cell site, but several others as well.
Of course, this is in a microcosmn what happens when there is a big "event" such as an earthquake or bombing - everybody tries to call Aunt Phillis and the cell network goes down. That's when we hams get busy....
Re:Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:2)
A given location can access more than one given cell site, where I live, I've seen my phone connecting to 4 different ones, right in the same place (debug mode on the phone is cool
So you can't say strictly that any site is part of one and only one cell. A failed site, a bush, etc can cause the loss or degradation of a signal which will cause the phone to look elsewhere.
Often the phone can and does, then work off another site.
Re:Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:2)
There was a bug in the site firmware, and so when it overloaded, it started sending garbage over the trunks.
Re:Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Some other fun synchronous experiments... (Score:1)
Now if they could just find the right resonant... (Score:4, Interesting)
This story reminded me of Tesla's Earthquake machine [primenet.com] 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.
75,000 tons of energy ??? (Score:1, Redundant)
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>
Re: 75,000 tons of energy ??? (Score:2)
Re: 75,000 tons of energy ??? (Score:4, Funny)
What would that be? The people who dangle?
</pedantic>
In related news... (Score:2)
not new - done before (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
Re:110 pounds (Score:1)
110 "stone"
(14lb per stone i believe?)
Re:110 pounds (Score:1)
Re:Could be used to blow up M$ (Score:1)
If you are that insane, go after Ford, at least with them there might be a possiblity that human lives have been risked due to business decisions.
The problem with holy wars is that they boil down to "You are wrong and I am right because I say I am," and people get so worked up about thier superiority that they get violent. As computer geeks, we tend to get in holy war debates over points that are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. (In short - go out, experience the real world, get a life.)