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
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So when you pull on the stick and it doesnt immediately get pulled back on the other side, you are, at that instant, creating more stick?
You are slightly and temporarily increasing the spacing between atoms/compounds in the stick. This spacing will effectively travel like a shockwave of "pull" down the stick.
You know what's more crazy. Electrons don't flow at the speed of light through a wire. Current is like Newtons Cradle, you push one electron in on one side and another bounces out on the other side, that happens at almost light speed. But individual electrons only travel at roughly 1cm per second trough a wire.
You're not creating more stick, but you're making the stick longer. The pressure wave in the stick will travel at the speed of sound in the stick which will be faster than sound in air, but orders of magnitude slower than light.
Everything has some elasticity. Rigidity is an illusion . Things that feel rigid to us are rigid in human terms only.
I get it. Elasticity isn't something you think about in the every day so it all seems rigid.
Exactly. At the atomic level solid matter acts a lot like jello. It also helps explain why things tend to break if you push or pull on them at rates that exceed the speed of sound in that material.
It would stretch like a rubber band stretches just a lot less. Wood, metal, whatever is slightly flexible. The stick would either get slightly thinner or slightly less dense as you pulled it. Also, you won't be able to pull it much because there's so much stick.