So far, it seems, pendulum transportation had been used mainly for fun, such as in the case of swigns. However, the principle could actually be used for transportation from house to house, either by building pendulums underground, or above the ground (in case of high buildings).
You can even think of chain of pendulums one after another, extending over long distances. (Due to low friction, small extra energy is necessary to swing back to the original level on the opposite side.)
[Sorry, couldn't find a better category. The word 'Mass' in 'Mass Transit', is not in the sense of plurality, but in the sense of matter.]-- Inyuki, May 24 2012 Wild Canyon Adventures http://www.wildcany...ctions-pendulum.phpPendulums used for fun... [Inyuki, May 24 2012] Wasn't this invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for his Tarzan novels? And circus aerialists, even before then?-- Vernon, May 24 2012 // Wasn't this invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for his Tarzan novels? //
No. ERB had Tarzan brachiating, at best, and once in a while climbing on the rope he carried.. The movies are where the whole "swinging on a vine" like a rope swing came from---how do they think vines grow, anyhow?-- baconbrain, May 24 2012 Hollywood? They don't 'think', for the most part. Realism in movies is a fairly recent trend, and hardly universal. That's how we end up with shit like 'Armageddon'.-- Alterother, May 24 2012 // Wasn't this invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs for his Tarzan novels? //
If it was, it was forgotten, that's why 'reinventing': no comfortable swing cabins; no elevator-like cabins, no long-dist swing concatenation inftrastructure, and no mechanisms to compensate for the energy loss due to air friction.
The world would look different, if they were invented before the wheel, -- we would probably see something akin to high-voltage transmission lines rather than roads if they were.-- Inyuki, May 24 2012 Love it. It could contain an upper ArcTrans if the lower SwingTrans were heavilly weighted like a metronome for counter two-story travel.
(pssst, is swigns pronounced swines?)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 25 2012 This is one of those 'bakes with a title that brings entirely different things to mind every time I see it.-- Alterother, May 25 2012 [Alterother], ohh, I didn't mean 'Trance'.
[2 fries shy of a happy meal], sorry for 'swigns' ;) it's good it's not schwein.-- Inyuki, May 26 2012 Neither did I.-- Alterother, May 26 2012 [Alterother], I see! Good.-- Inyuki, May 26 2012 random, halfbakery