16

Feb

Energy crisis – SOLVED

Posted by   Published in It's The Youtube, WTF

All we need is to do is hook up a generator to this perpetual motion machine!

(Although now I must know what the trick is.)

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Allegretto said on February 16th, 2011 at 10:46 am

There is a trick??

SPOILER TAGS PLZ!

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salmo said on February 16th, 2011 at 10:57 am

Forced perspective, I assume.

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Travis said on February 16th, 2011 at 11:20 am

Given that the model he’s using looks pretty much exactly like the one in M.C. Escher’s “Waterfall” (http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/mc-escher-waterfall.jpg), I would also conclude that it has something to do with perspective.

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zurn said on February 16th, 2011 at 12:07 pm

Nicely done…

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Stig said on February 16th, 2011 at 12:24 pm

Walk 90 degrees around it and you’ll see several of the ‘support’ columns are only connected to the whole frame at one end; it’s an optical illusion that makes them look all connected.

See also a sculpture of Escher’s “Waterfall”:

http://www.geekologie.com/2007/08/mc_eschers_impossible_waterfal.php

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Stig said on February 16th, 2011 at 12:26 pm

In fact, even worse, the thing isn’t even supported at all, it’s all on one level. The floor is sloped to create the illusion of perspective, and none of the beams are actually holding anything up; the bit which the water flows on is completely flat.

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Stig said on February 16th, 2011 at 12:27 pm

Or something.

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MGK said on February 16th, 2011 at 12:28 pm

I don’t think it’s forced perspective at all, because that wouldn’t explain the waterflow trick. I think this is a composite shot, or CGI water on a forced-perspective model.

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Christopher Paulicka said on February 16th, 2011 at 1:40 pm

Hm…nobody is actually addressing the perpetual motion aspect. He pours water in, and it starts the wheel rolling, and it looks like the rolling wheeling pushes the water along, and falls to push the wheel.

It doesn’t matter if it’s really level instead of going uphill. The question comes to how does he add energy to the system.

I actually hope it isn’t just CGI with him adding the sound effect and looping after the initial push of water.

I suspect it relates to the fact that he mixes color with the fluid, and the fact that the base under the waterwheel is quite large.

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zurn said on February 16th, 2011 at 2:08 pm

My first thought was that the water flow was flat on the ground, with CGI or other camera trick to add the waterfall. So a combination. Someone on the Youtube thread mentioned shadows; I didn’t catch anything super-obvious, but it’s possible there’s glitches there. Also the guy moved unevenly sometimes, as if frames are missing or have been edited.

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Midas said on February 16th, 2011 at 2:17 pm

my best guess would be a combination of forced perspective and splitscreening. he uses the left side at the start with him pouring from the left and then overlays a partial shot of waterflow from him pouring from the right, with him greenscreened out.

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Aardy R. DeVarque said on February 16th, 2011 at 3:01 pm

Re: Shadows

1. If you look at the shadows on the left for the two towers and the “bridge” between them, the shadows don’t quite match what they should if the object really were exactly what it appears to be.

2. If you watch how his shadow lands on the various “levels” of the waterway as he crosses from right to left and back and as he pours (especially at 0:03, 0:32, 0:40 and 1:14), there are some clues there as to the probable true shape of the object–or at least which parts are *actually* above each other or not

In other words, there’s definitely at least *some* forced perspective going on, though the water flow indicates that there’s an additional element to the trick.

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Cookie McCool said on February 16th, 2011 at 3:09 pm

Obviously this contraption was built at the World Famous Mystery Spot, where the laws of physics do not apply to Yoopers.

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alan said on February 16th, 2011 at 7:19 pm

looks damn cool though!

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Fred Davis said on February 17th, 2011 at 5:46 am

Actually you don’t need any additional trickery, you just need the trick to not involve a closed loop of water – the water from the “top” is actually falling slightly to the left of the water wheel, not going into the “bottom” part at all, and then all you need to do is cut off the video before the water entirely runs off of the the “top” and have a second little wheel that the water hits as it falls to the floor to spin it.

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chris said on February 17th, 2011 at 8:45 am

My guess:
It’s a forced perspective that will only work from this exact camera angle. First you need to ignore all pillars. They aren’t part of the structure. They’re just added on afterward, and cut off at exactly the right height so that it looks like they’re supporting the ramp. If you were to shoop them out, it would look like a simple ramp. The left pillar is attached to the base, and has a pump in it which pumps water up and out the circle which appears to be at the end of the ramp (but isn’t)

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Snap Wilson said on February 17th, 2011 at 9:19 pm

I think it’s forced perspective and then a little motor on the back side of the wheel.

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