It can look dumb, but I always had this question as a kid, what physical principles would prevent this?
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
516 points (94.5% liked)
Asklemmy
44938 readers
1275 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The problem lies in what "unstretchable" and "unbendable" means. Its always molecules and your push takes time to reach the other end. You think its instantaneous because you never held such a long stick. The push signal is slower than the light
Speak for yourself! ๐
Is it instantaneous though?
Basically the speed of sound in that material
It depends on the person who's holding it and pushing it. For me it takes at least three minutes!
Probably wiggly wiggly
Tbh I thought someone would make that joke when i wrote it lol
Alas, the longer the stick is, the floppier it gets.
I would liken it to a long freight train starting to move. Once the front starts moving, it will still be a minute before the back starts moving. The space between the train couplings is like the spring effect between atoms, or something.