Title text:
Reductio ad absurdum fails when reality is absurd.
Transcript:
At the left, a teacher is holding a pointer, pointing at a picture on the screen.]
[The picture shows a hydraulic lift, with a small fluid vessel on the left connected to a tube at the bottom, which connects to a large vessel on the right. On top of the large vessel is a weight labeled 1000 and a Cueball. The fluid in the large vessel is labeled with an upward arrow. Megan’s hand is over the small vessel, with a downward arrow indicating that she’s pressing on it.]
[Cueball, Hairbun, and Blondie are sitting at school desks going right to left.]
Cueball: No, that can’t be right.
Cueball: If hydrostatic pressure worked that way, then you could use it to make machines that exert near-infinite force.
Cueball: And ancient people could have demolished entire mountains just by drilling small tunnels and filling them with water.
[Caption below comic:]
When I first learned about Pascal’s law, I tried to disprove it by showing that it would lead to absurd consequences, but it turns out hydraulic presses and ruina montium are both real things.
Source: https://xkcd.com/3087/
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I drive a forklift every day at work and an stunned, every day, at the physics of hydraulic pressure. Need a couple thousand pounds of bricks 30’ in the air? No problem.
After learning this in school, I remember I drew and calculated absurd situations like how a monkey raises up a space shuttle.
WHAT??? Why didn’t they teach me this in physics school???
They didn’t?
They certainly should’ve; it’s just a consequence of how pressure is force divided by area.
Here’s an analogy that might make it feel less weird: you know how you can reduce the force needed to lift a heavy weight by using a lever and making the lever arm longer? This is the same kinda deal, except that instead of varying the length of the lever arm you’re varying the diameter of the hydraulic pistons.
You don’t get it for free, of course: just like how you have to push the long end of the lever a longer distance to lift the weight a shorter distance, in a hydraulic system you have to press the plunger further down the small-diameter piston to move the plunger in the large-diameter piston up a smaller amount.
(I thought of mentioning pulley systems as an analogy too, but of these three varieties of gaining mechanical advantage I find pulley systems to be the most confusing, LOL.)
Archimedes over here with his bigass lever
No, you’re right, pulleys are mechanical witchcraft, I tell you!
Another example: gears. You have a small wheel moving a large wheel trading speed for torque (or vice versa).
They did. You just weren’t paying attention, and it was only one day of the class. And it was one of the easy exam questions, so you didnt remember struggling on it.
it is really one of the basic physic principles that is taught in the high school, so i have no idea what kind of physic’s school would not teach that.
How do you think vehicle brakes had always worked? You think lightly pushing your foot on a pedal brings the 4,000 lb car to a stop with farts and whistles?
Well depending how close to going out your brake booster pump is, it very well could be powered by farts and whistles!
The dude is clearly underestimating my farts.
A short entry but it is on Wikipedia
Down the rabbit hole I go! Send snacks!
Look up “Las Médulas”, León, Spain. A great example of Ruina Montium. If you ever get the chance, you should totally visit it, and you can even visit one of the tunnels!
I’ve been there several times and I never get tired of it
Now I’m immensely confused about how skyscrapers work.
They have separate water systems separated every few floors, with pumps and valves to correct the pressure between them.
They built a maze so the pressure can’t find its way out, got it.
You joke, but it’s partially true.
I heard about a tall building that had its basement flooded with sewage. It turned out that the plumbers had simplified the drains. Rather than install the random turns every couple of floors, they just used a straight pipe. In effect, turds were falling 20+ floors, to smash into an inspection/access hatch. Eventually the screws sheered off, and everything emptied into the basement instead of the sewer.
