I just discovered something very strange.

[tridim]

I'm sitting at my computer bouncing my butt on an exercise ball. I look up at the curtains and they are moving in rhythm to my bounces. Must be the wind or air from the bouncing? Nope, it's the bouncing action of the ball making the curtains move slightly. When I stop bouncing they come to rest as expected. I've tested it at 10 feet and it still works.

:crazy:

It has to be static electricity, but I had no idea it worked at a distance.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Feel free to verify the effect if you have an exercise ball. I'm using one with sand inside. The curtains are just hanging freely from a metal rod.

And no, I'm not smoking anything. :)

[MADem]

1. Do you live in a crackerbox, where everything goes when the whistle blows? nt

[babylonsister]

2. Who cares? How's your butt look?

Practice! ;)

[tridim]

8. Very trim thank you.

:)

I bounce on it every day.

[tabatha]

3. What kind of floor do you have?

[tridim]

7. Update: just checked on a wood floor and it doesn't work.

It works on carpet.

[Indydem]

4. It could be vibrations in the floor passing up through the walls. n/t

[HeresyLives]

5. Maybe it's your eyes that are bouncing.

:rofl:

[dorkulon]

6. "Must be the wind or air from the bouncing?"

How have you determined it isn't?

[tridim]

10. 10 feet away, it starts immediately.

[xchrom]

9. you better light something up -- make that exercise ball even more fun. nt

[RagAss]

11. eeerrrr...the Dopler effect ?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

12. My guess is that your curtains

are demonically possessed.

It happens.

Sleep well tonight...........

[Mz Pip]

13. Air curents?

Maybe you're creating wind with your bouncy ball. :bounce: :bounce:

[tridim]

14. Perfect smiley!

:)

The curtains move the instant I start bouncing, no matter the distance.

[bkkyosemite]

15. I think you are right that it is static since it does not do it on the floor but does on the carpet.

[tridim]

18. Just tested on the wood flooring in the hallway outside of my carpeted room..

20 feet away, through the doorway and it still works. That's as far away as I can get.

I don't think I've discovered anything new, just a cool static electricity experiment. It's really an impressive thing IMO. It takes very little bouncing to get the curtains moving, and when I bounce hard they move about an inch.

[DCKit]

16. Maybe it's not the ball, but your butt? n/t

[ClearPresentDanger]

17. Sympathetic Resonance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_resonance

[tridim]

20. It's not making any sound or vibrations.

But I can get some additive resonance going by timing the bounces to match the curtain movement.

Has anyone else tried this yet? It's really cool! I'm dying for some confirmation.

[Salviati]

30. No sound or vibrations... that you can detect that is

If you happen to be generating vibrations at, or close to, the resonant frequency of your curtins, they would be much too low frequency to hear. And if you're driving it near the resonant frequency, it wouldn't take too much amplitude to get them moving.

One way to check that is to change the frequency of the bouncing. Try bouncing really fast and really slow and see if there is any differance.

Since we're dealing with such short distances, it really isn't possible to determine whether or not it's sound waves generating the motion purely by looking at how soon after the bouncing the curtins start waving. I mean, when someone is talking to you across the room, there is no (noticable) time delay between their mouth moving and you hearing their words

[tridim]

31. See post 24. you are right.

The hanging curtains basically have no friction, so the low frequency, high amplitude oscillations generated by the changing shape of the ball move them around easily.

[Gman]

19. Maybe it's similar to...

two pendulums next to each other. You put one in motion and eventually the other one starts moving too.

[ConcernedCanuk]

21. I'm curious - what exactly is an exercise ball?

.
.
.

and how does it improve the appearance of one's butt?

Interesting concept, but I think my keyboarding is bad enough without trying to bounce on a ball while I'm doing it!

Y'all don't get to see all my typos - tankgawdfordat!

I'm a spell-check addict

out of need!

:dunce:

[tridim]

22. It's just an inflatible ball that you can sit on or use for exercise.

Bouncing and rolling while sitting on it gets the heart rate up and tones muscles all over the body. It's really good for the back if you sit in an office chair all day.

[ConcernedCanuk]

25. I could sit on that!

.
.
.

:silly:

[Posteritatis]

23. Lightning's static electricity; that has the distance thing down pat

An exercise ball (especially on a carpet or something) could set up a pretty impressive charge, I can believe it moving a curtain at a distance.

[tridim]

24. Just figured out that the window behind the curtain has to be open or it doesn't work

There is no wind outside, so that's not a variable.

I think this is all about pressure waves, the bouncing ball is acting just like a sub-woofer. The open window acts as a vent.

Not as cool as the static electricity thing, but still a neat trick. :)

[Indenturedebtor]

26. I was going to go with quantum pairing

You have inadvertently paired some of your butt molecules with some of your curtain molecules :D

[joshcryer]

27. Sounds exactly like it. You are compressing the ball when you bounce.

This is resulting in the pressure in the room changing slightly, which just so happens to bring just enough air in to cause the curtins to move.

Awesome post, shows the scientific method quite well.

[Ganja Ninja]

28. You want to see something strange.

Take one of those Cureaid bandage wrappers (the easy open one's that are held together with adhesive) and remove the bandage. Stick the wrapper back together and go into a dark room. Reopen it slowly and watch the area where they come apart. You should see a glow from the adhesive as it comes apart.

[elehhhhna]

32. wintogreen lifesavers spark when you chew them in the dark

[jayfish]

29. Quantum Entanglement.

Just kidding. It’s probably the bouncing oscillations being transferred through your floor to your walls.

Jay