Making Artificial Earthquakes with a Four-Tonne Steel Ball
EducationTom Scott•370.4K Views
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Editorial Analysis
In Göttingen, Germany, there's a four-tonne steel ball that can be raised up a 14-metre tower -- and then dropped in less than two seconds, crashing back to earth. It makes tiny, artificial earthquakes: here's why.\n\nThanks to all the team at Wiechert'sche Erdbebenwarte Göttingen! You can find out more about them here: https://www.erdbebenwarte.de/\n\nThree things I had to cut out of this video, because they didn't quite fit into the story or because I couldn't film them:\n\nThe reason the steel ball survived two world wars is because the university's records listed it by use as a rock-ball, not by composition as a steel ball - so no-one melted it down for weaponry.\n\nThe observatory team refill that pit every year to make the ground flat, and the ball just digs a hole again. The rock's just being compressed underneath. They joke that, somewhere in Australia, there's a slowly growing hill...\n\nAnd finally, the ground steams for a little while after the ball hits: it gets rather warm...\n\nEdited by Michelle Martin (@mrsmmartin)\n\nI'm at http://tomscott.com\non Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott\non Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott\nand on Snapchat and Instagram as tomscottgo
