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M$1.25 August 18, 2009 08:23 PM

How do you figure out the mathematics of this water slide? Where do you put the pool?

How many times do you think it was tested (and people died) before it worked as in the video?
Is the video even real?
Would you try this?
How do you think they figured out the distance and placement of pool?
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Interesting: buddawiggi M$0.25

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August 18, 2009 09:41 PM
Well, I'm confident that this video is not real - stopping that fast from that speed is not survivable. It's not the fall that kills you, it's the suddenness of the stop.

However, if you wanted to do something like this, rather than use mathematics, an empirical approach would be easier - get a dummy that weighs as much as the person, send it down the chute, and see where it lands.
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August 18, 2009 09:36 PM
I'm pretty positive this video is fake. If you pause the video at 12 seconds, you can see that the bottom, middle of the slide is block by grass. My guess it that he actually goes down the slide. Then the camera "films" him going off of the jump and landing in the pool (that part isn't real, it was added later). Then, another guy, who has hiding in the pool, pops up like he just made an unbelievable jump.

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August 18, 2009 11:02 PM
I have seen people claim to have seen the reveal on this "trick", but I haven't seen it yet.

My speculation? (1) The guy disappears for a second at the bottom of the slide and then (2) "he" also disappears into the pool for a second. Pretty easy to have the first guy slide into some mats, substitute a dummy shot out of a cannon of some sort and then have a second guy in the pool ready to jump out.

Anyhow, you'd still want to run the calculations first to get the slide/pool into position. Getting it roughly right on the back of a napkin is Newtonian Physics 101, so very easy. Once you've got rough ramp and a target, you can start sliding a real weight down the ramp and adjust. Then get your final dummy and adjust some more. Furthermore, once you have it all set up, you can just do it over and over again until you get it right (like the amazing trick basketball shots you see all over the place).
Source(s):
http://www.mach-es-machbar.de/das-projekt-megawoosh.php5


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August 19, 2009 04:47 AM
It has to be a fake. The tipoff is that they only used a couple of buckets of water to wet the slide. For the trick to work, the entire slide would have to be thoroughly soaked. In addition, the trick would work only if the friction from the slide (which affects the terminal velocity and the trajectory of the dummy after launch) remains constant, meaning that the water flow along the slide would have to be constant throughout the testing process as well. If this isn't the case, even the most accurate calculations will have error margins so large that live testing of the slide would be like playing Russian roulette with a single empty chamber. (As discussed by other answerers, the calculations themselves are straightforward--except for that bit about friction.)
Source(s):
ever try sliding on a dry Slip 'n' Slide?


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