The Crazy Thing About Slinkies

in today's video we are taking a look at a toy that has entertained kids for generations the slinky [Music] guys we have a lot of slinkys today slinkys are pretty awesome if you were ever a kid so you really hope you were you've probably played with one of these if you are a couple of really weird grown-ups you're gonna play with them today that's us yeah here's the basic idea we have tons of different types of slinkys we are gonna put them through a series of tests we want to see what sort of stairs work best with these and what else we might be able to do with them so slinkys they were invented by Richard James who was actually a naval engineer and he and his wife introduced them to Gimbels department store in Philadelphia in the early 1940s they were actually incredibly worried that they weren't gonna take off they paid a friend to play with the first one and within the first few hours they sold over 400 since then they have been absolutely loved and these metal slinkys they have not changed at all the only change is this small little safety crimp at the end other than that though nothing has changed so these things are really really fun now I learned quite a few things while researching slinkys namely the fact the veritasium has done a pretty cool test we're gonna try that out Nate you were telling me that fling keys make a very specific and very iconic sound that's true what I've heard is that one of the sound effects for Star Wars firing off a blaster is made by suspending a slinky and then hitting it and having that sound wave travel down through when you're just doing it next to it you don't hear too much you hear like a shaking sound but you don't hear the Star Wars yeah the sound is audible when you put your ear right to the opening I'm gonna put my microphone in there so you can hear it so uncivilized this is a really fun experiment to just see the movement of a wave through a solid so I feel like we need to do a few different tests unfortunately the stares at our location right now aren't really ideal for slinky usage especially because I called the regular-sized slinkys and then Nate shows up with this yeah that Nate where in the world the Internet that makes sense of course we're gonna be entertained by doing this for a really long time so maybe we should try the stairs here see see how it goes and then if not move location let's try them all right I feel like maybe stairs were narrower in the 1940s if this is the same size that's just because every slinky seems to have a specific width it's one of the most classic things you do with a slinky you put it on stairs and then you pull it over really hard and just sort of walks itself down gloriously showing off in many many forms of media my favorite is Ace Ventura 2 as you whip a slinky over it has sort of a certain distance that it travels and you can maybe exaggerate that distance a little bit but it is gonna have a natural radius and so if you've got stairs that are too wide obviously my stairs were several feet wide it's it's not gonna slinky over so you need to have something sort of like alright so we do have stairs outside choose your champion oh boy I chose mine I'll try the standard metal alright see how this works ready ready what do you think is gonna win I don't think my slinky is gonna get down more than one stair I think mine's going to fail horribly but I think it's gonna go farther than yours I don't yeah this slinky needs narrower stairs I think yours might need wider stairs honestly the plastic slinkys they don't work as well but yeah these stairs are I would say 4 inches too wide we're gonna see ready mark get set and slinky I would file with Arjun goodbye goodbye goodbye I'm so close actually really close to going all the way it angled a little bit let's try again starting yours right in the middle mine clearly didn't go anyway on your mic yeah it's it and slinky slinky slinky slinky oh no no okay I put it too far back hang on on your mark get set and slinky really likes going at it okay night you were going to try yours one more time yeah I think I solved it okay well they made it all the way down the stairs listen do the technicality that did work yet it for some reason it's just so satisfying to just shove it up it just likes going left Oh [Music] until I hit them it likes me more clearly we have about 30 more slinky so we have a giant slinky time for more stairs Nate thank you right so Nate we found some stairs we found a few more stairs still not sure if these stairs are steep enough and narrow enough but we can try a few different types of slinkys way too wide we were concerned about the fact that the stairs were too wide back yeah wider ones but here's the thing I've got upwards of 50 slinkys and I think if I were to just chuck them they won't slinky but they'll do something hey listen first let's start out with a regular slinky test after that let's just get creative go go it worked flawlessly listen we have some metal slinkys in here somewhere there we go okay on your mark get set swing gate once link slide gate like a slinky slinky everybody loves a slinky this is exactly how this is meant to go I did it hey that's a cheating way to get it down the stairs you are cheating sir you're a cheater McKee derson I think I need to slipper your pants we're both gonna try something I think my ways can work fast he think it thinks his is here goes go for it that's definitely not how slinkys work absolutely I trust a pile of Twinkies down what 50 stairs there are slinky shrapnel bits over there Nate's got the remnants of one some of our slinky just did not survive what are you talking about that glorious two and a half steps hang on Pam if you keep it right on the very edge here nice okay fine your turn all right the mega slinky we named that one well no we already have a big birthday I don't know with this okay we need that one sadness and disappointment this one the springiness is not quite scaled to the size so it doesn't pull itself back together very well as a result of it not springing it it just likes to lay flat instead of staying in a cylinder so some of my Instagram and snapchat friends didn't believe I was actually doing this so now I gotta clean that up I think this is more of a gag than anything else wonder if my head can fit in it take the glasses off I'm gonna put the glasses over the slinky here you go there you go that's great that's great this is a good luck there you go shall we find some other stairs we should try okay so Nate how long have we been 13 oh we've driven around quite a bit I think we discussed this every slinky is gonna have stairs that are just the right width for them and this is the best we've found so far there we just under one foot they are but the thing is we have come to a beautiful location and the only stairs that are working are right by our utility closet that's how we can find go go go go come on little buddy you can do it I have faith in you did you want something you know you still you know it's so good yeah that's like the sideways climb there's like a roll slinky define stairs for slinkys in 2019 Oh self-correcting got back on track Richard James you have the right idea metal slinkys are the way to go also whoever decided that stairs should be safe and why'd you kill the slinky game you killed it sir or ma'am alright guys so we are going to also be attempting veritasium experiment when you drop slinky from a high height the spring force itself actually equals the gravitational pull so the bottom of the slinky will actually stay in place until the top reaches it and then the whole thing will fall so Nate's gonna be up in the boom lift let's see how this works we're gonna try both a regular slinky and three we have put together alright three two one so it's actually really cool guys now we're going from live you it did look like the bottom stayed still until the top it did I was not expecting that that's so cool three two one [Music] all right so for this one this is actually two slinkys that have been glued together but these are plastic we've never seen it done with plastic before so maybe somebody's done it but we have it so we want to see if it works the same three two one well the bottom didn't move it looked like the bottom to move it didn't collapse in a perfect column it did not but I thought the bottom stayed still until gravity caught up with the rest of it I like it you've got one more up there with you I do and this is a triple metal spring and I'm not sure if this is high enough or if I'm gonna have to go higher still you will absolutely have to go higher three two one Wow okay so same thing it did not work the same way as a single slinky however the bottom I don't think move from here not a great view I think it worked all right I also think we've definitely ruined this slinky in many ways we kind of stretched out the top of that is [Music] this is not working white one who did - there we go slinky scarf guys that was a lot of fun and you know we've always got more for you to see if you want to see our latest video go and click that box up at the top and we'll see you in the next one talk to you then [Music]

Channel: The King of Random

Views: 1,178,280

Rating: 4.6337047 out of 5

Keywords: slinky, slinkies, slowmo, slow, slow motion, tension, falling, spring, gravity, model, modelling, experiments, hd, veritasium, motion, hd slinky, drop, giant slinky, defy gravity, interesting science, tkor, random happens, thekingofrandom, home science experiments, try it at home, slinky on an elevator, slinky on an escalator, slinkys, metal slinky, electricity slinky, plastic slinky, what is the best slinky

Id: Ql_dfhMYM1Y

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 05 2019