23: to the other side

to the other side

Those who know this place probably are currently smiling. As the tibetian prayer flags have bleached e little in the past two years, we had to substitute them. Naturally the new flags are very fresh and clean. But we developed an almost brilliant scheme to generate motivation to often renew these new flags now flying over the student appartment building's parking lot. ;-)

7 comments so far...

Drittelhacker October 30, 2007, 05:50 AM

Interesting to see this one right next to the bridge. Let's me think of quite some adventure for you ... ;-)

larsipulami October 30, 2007, 08:18 AM

The first question from the other inhabitants in the house actually was something like: "Right, are you going to climb that rope?"

Answer was, of course: "We are no idiots!"

I don't have the time to draw it now, but if you simply calculate the triangle of force build up by a weight hanging in the middle of the rope. And if you then know, that the hook at one side of the construction is build to resist 50kg hangig from it, you are happy this construction is not crashing from the weight of our (wet) clothes.

A human being of approx. 80kg? I wouldn't dare. And I beg you to bring somebody to clean up your remains after you tried.

larsipulami October 30, 2007, 08:29 AM

You find some information in german here: http://www.geocities.com/hs_dav/theorie/fels3.htm

In short: if the angle in the middle of the rope (at the point where a potential climber would be dangling) is wider than 120° then the force at both anchor-points would be greater than the force of his weight alone. Given, that his weight alone would be sufficient to burst the hook at one side and the tension of the rope (prividing a wider angle than 120°, he would probably put twice the maximum allowed force on the hook.

Good luck.

And I just thought about reducing the slack nevertheless.

Lesson to learn: if you walk the tight rope be sure of your anchors!

kodaky October 30, 2007, 12:10 PM

You should loose the rope. The wider the angle, less the traction on the anchors. It looks like it is high enough not to hit the heads of the people passing down there.

* remembering of high school lessons *

T traction on each half of the rope
m mass of clothes, considering a concentraded mass of clothes in the middle of the rope
g gravity
α angle in the middle of the rope

T = m*g*acos(α/2)/2

larsipulami October 30, 2007, 12:26 PM

It is indeed high enough. It's two stairs up. We thought of putting a "maximum height sign" just for the fun of it. Normally even the biggest trucks should easily fit under the rope. (How the would get through the very narrow and curvy drive to the parking lot is absolutely left to them.)