Re: Droping a Slinky: the sky is falling

[Russ Abbott]

Imagine a super-sized slinky with a very large flat plate attached to its bottom. Suppose that we are living under it. (This is a very large plate, but this is my story.) The plate looks to everyone like the sky.

The curious among us climb up to the plate and look at the other side to see what's holding it up. We find that it is apparently held up by a coiled wire that goes further up into the mists. No one is able to see where the wire goes. It seems pretty firmly established though.

One day, Chicken Little goes crazy and starts running around saying that the sky is falling.  We go back up to look. The coiled wire is still there. Even though she insists that it's falling, we ignore her and go about our lives.  Then one day, ...

Could this somehow be turned into the story of the financial crisis?

 

-- Russ 

On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 12:03 PM, Stephen Guerin <[hidden email]> wrote:

Cool! Thanks, Eric.

I was curious and mocked up a quick spring model in Netlogo to play
with the dynamics. You can see a video here
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtWiM5jicOI

-S

On Sat, Oct 1, 2011 at 7:07 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Below are links to some science videos nifty for two reasons.
>
> 1) They ask and answers a pretty cool question: What happens when you hold a
> slinky out at shoulder height, so it is extended down (the bottom still off
> the ground) and you let go. Think about it for a second. How does the top
> part of the slinky move, how does the bottom part move, how does the center
> of mass move? A good physics thought experiment! (If you are having trouble
> imagining it, here is the question:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGIZKETKKdw)
>
> 2) The answer illustrates the weirdness of trying to apply the term
> 'information' to all possible situations. At about 1:30, the physics prof
> offers an explanation for what happens, and (for just a second) talks as if
> one part of the slinky is transmitting 'information' about its movement to
> another part of the slinky, which is bizarre way. The slinky itself is
> moving, it is not transmitting information about the movement, it IS moving.
> Why would you say that it takes time for 'the information to propagate',
> instead of simply saying that 'it takes time for the slinky to move'. Weird,
> weird, weird.
>
> At any rate, Here is the cool answer:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCMmmEEyOO0
> (and it continues here: http://www.youtube.com/wa! tch?v=oKb2tCtpvNU&NR=1)
>
> This seemed like the type of thing lots of people on the list would get a
> kick out of... so... hope you do.
>
> Eric
>

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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org