May 14, 2012
How a slight tap could literally knock down The Empire State Building
Here’s a little fact that doesn’t seem overly interesting at first: A tipping domino can knock over another domino that is about 1.5 times bigger than it is.
But here is the astounding implication: If you start with a tiny domino — only 5 millimeters tall — and then set up a series of dominoes, each 1.5 times larger than the previous one, in fewer than 30 blocks, you will have a domino as large as The Empire State Building, which will crash to the ground as a result of tipping the tiny block over.
Check it out…
(via HyperVocal)
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You wouldn’t be able to knock over the Empire State Building, as it is grounded into the ground and has more stability than the typical shape a domino has.
But if the domino was large and heavy enough, and it was the last domino in the sequence, It could probably fall over. And even if it didn’t, the windows would shatter and take out at least a level, making at least some of the empire state building to break off and fall over.
they should have adults fact checking these
Is this a burn?
Yes you could. The equation for domino height is .005*1.5^n, which means that after 29, you have one as tall as the Empire State Building (I don’t know if that would work), but you’d have a sure bet within a few more iterations–at 40, your domino would be 55 km high. So you just need to go 1 or 2 more in the sequence for a sure bet.
Which is why there are no domino championships in NYC
You may want to re-phrase that a bit. Having the Empire State Building (and therefore NYC) in mind from your title, when you said “30 blocks”, I assumed a chain of dominoes that is 30 *city* blocks long. Then I watched the video and saw that you meant 30 *dominoes* — which is much more impressive.
I’m with Justin. This assumes that buildings have no foundation, footings, grade beam, or structural reenforcement and that they are simple self-contain boxes sitting on level ground. This definitely would not work in real life.
And here I thought the feasibility of building a domino the 2/3 the size of the Empire State Building and being able to place it next to it was the difficult position of it working in real life. U r so smart.
But okay, let’s play devil’s advocate: I propose we make it thirty-ONE iterations in which we have a domino the size of the Empire State Building collide with the Empire State Building. Or heck, how about thirty-TWO with one the 1.5 times the size of the skyscraper… oh no, that would be just too many dominoes.
You critics are missing the point of the fact that it takes so few iterations of the pattern to go from something the wind could easily knock over to the Empire State Building, turning Joe Citizen into the Biggest Baddest Wolf able to huff and puff and blow all your houses down.
There we go.
Things like this shouldn’t be posted on the internet. You’re just giving the terrorists more ideas.
That was a great physics experiment. Thanks! Fun to watch and think about.
Oh man grow up do you seriously think a) that no one would notice a terrorist setting up a large series of huge dominoes b) how many terrorists deal in dominoes rather than arms. …some people on the net amaze me
I’m a different Josh than the crazy terror-phobe BTW…