They said I would be suspended from phone books, but did they know I weighed more than 200 pounds? And how high and for how long?
When I entered the Great Lakes Science Center to test the Phone Book Friction Swing experiment that's part of MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition, I was grateful to find the apparatus was only 5 feet off the ground. My skepticism grew when I saw it was made up of a bar on a chain hanging from two clamps attached to two phone books interwoven by folded pages. How would this haphazard contraption hold my weight when I can't even do a pullup?
The answer: friction.
"Each page has a tiny little bit of frictional force," says Dante Centuori, GLSC director of creative productions, while flawlessly hanging from the phone books. "When you're talking about hundreds of pages, you end up with thousands of pounds of force because you have all those pages sandwiched between each other."
When it was my turn to use the swing, I clutched the bar. Surprisingly, it bore my weight as I lifted my legs off the ground.
This swing mimics a larger one capable of holding thousands of pounds and is one of several experiments people can try at the MythBusters exhibit, on display from Feb. 7 to May 3. Visitors can interact with more than 125 artifacts from the Discovery Channel show before conducting experiments and watching live demonstrations, such as learning how the Cuyahoga River caught fire as scientists ignite water.
"The exhibit really gets at the heart of day-to-day questions you have about everyday things," says Kirsten Ellenbogen, GLSC president and CEO. "It's really about solving those challenges."
