I still do the “thumb removal” trick, but very badly. This guy does it fantastically, and uses all the other fingers as well. Maybe I should practice this. . .
How on Earth does he do the last finger movement trick, though?
The YouTube video has a funny comment under it:
And “Slow Mo Guys” created a video in which one of them dives onto a trampoline with a thousand loaded mousetraps. The diver wasn’t injured, but it goes to show that no matter how weird and pointless an act might be, you can always find it on the Internet.
The only thing I can think to say is Splinters.
Coming up next, I hope: Trump’s commencement address to the graduating students of Liberty University.
This mousetrap video (illustrating nuclear chain reaction) is better – starting at 9:10.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ranSh-lZsxM]
When the right hand’s pinkie seems to detach, you see the middle finger of the left hand in its place.
Well yes. That was the one I found most unsettling, till I realised what was done.
But extremely skillful manipulation, all of it.
cr
The very unsettling aspect of a finger being ‘broken off’ is part of the trick, that is, the all important distraction which in this case is psychological, disarming both the viewer’s vision and logic. Being disarmed works just for a few seconds however, and then logic kicks in especially if that bit of the vid is paused. As dargndorp perceived, the middle finger of the left hand hides the pinky on the right hand so as the left pinky is ‘broken off’, the right pinky lowers till it vanishes. His having long slender fingers also help in pulling off the illusion.
Yes, I live for meta-analysis! 🙂
‘…the middle finger of the left hand hides the pinky on the right hand so as the left pinky is ‘broken off’, the right pinky lowers till it vanishes.
Boy it’s challenging to describe: the middle finger of the left hand hides the pinky on the right hand so as the supposed right pinky is ‘broken off’ (which is really the left middle finger), the real right pinky lowers till it vanishes.
That must be it. But I don’t see the switch, even though i know what to look for.
There were a couple women who sat across the auditorium-style classroom in first-year “Contracts” class that I would entertain with the thumb-removal trick during low spots in the lectures.
Hadn’t thought about that in years, man.
I’d as lief climb down into that pit of snakes with Indiana Jones as willingly to dive into a thousand mousetraps.
Pretty cool lookin’, though.
Someone forgot his security goggles…
Interesting that the mousetraps round the edge went off first (or at least, bounced into the air first). I assume the impact of the guy in the centre of the tramp must have generated an outward-moving wave which increased in intensity (or lateral acceleration) as it approached the fixed edge. Not what I would intuitively have expected, at all.
cr
Another one of theirs – how to cut a watermelon in half by stretching rubber bands round it. Fascinating the way it suddenly ‘goes’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK8dsAeMmPk
Why it goes suddenly is that the entire skin of the watermelon is under stress and once a crack starts, it then spreads with lightning speed, and the shell of the watermelon then becomes a much less ‘strong’ shape to resist the pressure of the rubber bands.
cr
And here’s a couple of slow-mo kitteh-related (hence by definition On Topic on this site!) videos from the same guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xN12kR4TLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=705OzYq7cXU
Fascinating how waves run through Lloyd’s fur from the point of impact when he lands.
cr
At the speed of sound in watermelon crusts. The speed of propagation of electrical breakdown through air is considerably higher, including non-trivial contributions from ionisation of the air ahead of the bolt tip by UV radiation from the main body of the bolt. A complex phenomenon compared to the propagation of fractures through solid bodies.
Propagation of fractures releasing strain in earthquakes is another complex phenomenon which receives a fair amount of study, for obvious reasons.
Anyone care to hold the stakes on where the first megadeath earthquake will hit? I’d vote for the Ganges plain somewhere, with a caveat about Naples getting wiped out by Vesuvius (where there will be earthquakes, but it’s the pyroclastic flows that’ll be the big killer).
Okay, ‘lightning speed’ was a figure of speech and somewhat hyperbolic, I have to admit.
In fact the crack propagation in the watermelon crust was probably significantly less than the ‘speed of sound’ i.e. of vibrations, since the splitting process will have been slowed by the work of extending the crack.
Now if you really want a lightning-speed crack propagation, see their video of a Pyrex glass jug being broken, particularly the handle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbuvcQrAOSk
The thing about toughened glass (as I’m sure you know) is that the surface layer is in compression and the entire inside is in tension so as soon as any scratch penetrates into the tension zone the cracks do spread with ‘lightning’ speed.
cr
If you wasted time and enjoyed it, the time wasn’t wasted.
The mousetrap one seems intimidating (I would not do it), but they almost all go off when airborne, well away from the jumper.