> So, stack 10 or so cans on top of each other, stand on it, and tap one.
> What will happen?  The tapped one will get crushed, but what of the rest?
> Will they pancake, or did the one that failed absorb enough energy to
> prevent more damage?  It's hard enough to model that, let alone anything
> bigger.
>
>   
Or when the stack collapses will it not crush in the strongest possible
way IE straight down, will it instead tip over just a little removing
the structural integrity of the stack and the top can will hit the
ground just a little after it would have if you dropped it?
Sound possible?
Rather than the whole unsupported stack magically maintaining all the
heavy bits balancing on the bits below.


> I've tried with 2 or 3 cans, but you can't balance on them.  Duct tape!
> Almost makes me want to run out and buy a couple of slabs** of Coke.
>
> Anyway, the perfect real-world test exists.  A 41 (?) storey building at the
> WTC, damaged but still standing, is due to be demolished shortly.  I think a
> petition needs to be made to fill it with office furniture, torch it and see
> what happens.
>
> Tony
>
>
> *British yob version of Mythbusters.  Obsessed with caravans.
>
> **Slab = carton of beer.  From Victoria in Australia, people think it's a
> fabulous term so it's spread countrywide.  I think the Poms have picked it
> up too.  No doubt a Kiwi will pipe up and claim they invented it. 
>
>   

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