# Can someone explain the Happy Drinking Bird? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2006, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553 "2006-01-05T09:17:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/1 "2006-01-05T09:17:04Z")
Or maybe it’s a Drinking Happy Bird (the packaging was a bit unclear). It is a glass bird, long neck, head and beak covered with some kind of fuzzy material, on a sort of hinge (there is a better word, I can’t think of it right now). You set it on a surface next to a water glass (and it can be a pretty short water glass), dunk the bird’s head in the water, and let go. it rocks up, and slowly begins rocking, making wider and wider arcs until the bird’s beak dips into the water again, at which point the arc it makes becomes much shorter and the pendulum action quicker, again slowly progressing until the bird once again dunks its beak…and so on, until the water is empty. Really it’s almost like a perpetual motion machine. Except that periodically somebody has to bring it water. So how does it work? What is making this thing rock? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/2 "2006-01-05T09:33:08Z")
It’s a thermometer; when the fluid inside fills the column, it overbalances; this causes part of it to enter the water, cooling it and causing the fluid in the column to go back down, restoring the original state of balance. It requires a warm room and a cold glass of water, so it isn’t really perpetual motion; it’s (inefficiently) exploiting the movement of heat from a warm medium to a colder one. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/3 "2006-01-05T09:35:29Z")
Not sure of anything about them other then what I learned in the Simpson’s, which is not to put it in charge of your nuclear reactor? ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/4 "2006-01-05T11:01:09Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > Not sure of anything about them other then what I learned in the Simpson’s, which is not to put it in charge of your nuclear reactor? It would probably do a better job than Homer, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/5 "2006-01-05T15:17:33Z")
A complete explanation is [HERE](http://nicholnl.wcp.muohio.edu/DingosBreakfastClub/DippyBird/DrinkingBirdFizzicks.html). ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/6 "2006-01-05T15:58:27Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > Not sure of anything about them other then what I learned in the Simpson’s, which is not to put it in charge of your nuclear reactor? I don’t know anything about them either, except that my mom does an excellent impression of what she calls a goony bird. Stone cold sober too. ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/7 "2006-01-05T16:19:40Z")
All I know is that, when broken, the liquid will eat the varnish off your wood table faster than you can get a paper towel to clean the liquid up. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/8 "2006-01-06T08:05:27Z")
> [@Dragwyr](#): > > A complete explanation is [HERE](http://nicholnl.wcp.muohio.edu/DingosBreakfastClub/DippyBird/DrinkingBirdFizzicks.html). Thanks. That also cleared up the question of its name–Happy Drinking Bird. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/9 "2006-01-06T12:58:35Z")
> [@Ca3799](#): > > All I know is that, when broken, the liquid will eat the varnish off your wood table faster than you can get a paper towel to clean the liquid up. The link that **Dragwyr** suggests that it’s methylene chloride. When I worked in a machine shop we used to use a hypodermic syringe full of methylene chloride to glue large pieces of Plexiglas together. After machining a few slabs of inch-thick plastic to fit together in some way, we would put them together and inject the stuff at the edge of the joint, where it would wick in and instantly weld the plastic together. Quite impressive in its speed. Your varnish didn’t stand a chance! ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/10 "2006-01-06T13:22:27Z")
Would Happy Drinking Bird work on a treadmill? ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/11 "2006-01-06T13:43:07Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > Would Happy Drinking Bird work on a treadmill? Arrrrrggghhhhh! Oh, and LOL! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/12 "2006-01-06T14:33:44Z")
I once read an internet account by a guy who studied the dipping bird toy to determine just how much work (in the physics sense) it accomplishes as a heat pump. He rigged one to lift a paperclip, gradually, via a winch, so that each time the head bobbed it would incrementally, if almost imperceptibly, spool up the paperclip. He calculated, IIRC, that one dipping bird generates the equivalent of one nano-horsepower or one millionth of a watt. NB: these calculations might have been rounded off. Theoretically, and assuming superconductor-like efficiencies in electrical microcurrent transmissions, this suggests that a power plant of 60,000,000 dipping birds all a-bobbing could power a standard 60-watt incandescent light bulb. (The mind boggles.) Unfortunately, my Google-fu wasn’t good enough to locate this paper. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/13 "2006-01-06T16:02:54Z")
[This set of reminiscences](http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/74/2/Enrico+Fermi%3FThe+Master+Scienti) (a BIG pdf) about Enrico Fermi includes a talk by his daughter Nella that has her description of his particular fascination with the toy: > [@](#): > > It was hard to buy presents for my father; he disliked neckties and was a man of simple tastes. Like so many fathers, he was well provided with much of what he wanted or needed. Only once did I succeed in finding a present which really grabbed him. I was walking by a store window and saw a display of strange birds, which were dunking their heads in a glass of water, over and over and over again … My father was delighted and set about figuring out how the bird worked. Characteristically, he mixed learning with play, and both with teaching. In this my brother and I were his first pupils. We were his audience as he set about figuring out how the bird worked. He was learning, teaching, and having fun. I had thought that the workings of the bird would be obvious to him. Instead, I saw how he approached a problem. I learned not only how the bird worked, but more importantly, something about how to learn. As the bird swiveled on a metal stand up and down, my father puzzled over the bird, and then he did some simple experiments. First he filled the glass with alcohol instead of water. The bird’s motion accelerated. Next, he put a large glass bowl over the top of the bird, glass and all. Gradually the bird slowed down, and finally, came to a stop. “You see! It must be alive,” he said, “It gets drunk on alcohol and it asphyxiates if it doesn’t get enough air.” He thought about it some more and then came up with a solution. He considered putting a question about the bird on the Qualifying Exam. But unfortunately, he was unable to restrain himself, and he talked about it to some of his students … and of course, after that, it wouldn’t have been a fair question. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/14 "2006-01-06T16:07:48Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > Would Happy Drinking Bird work on a treadmill? Sure, but it wouldn’t take off. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/15 "2006-01-07T04:08:13Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Sure, but it wouldn’t take off. Please no!! that thread is gone right? ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/16 "2006-01-07T04:20:43Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It’s a thermometer; when the fluid inside fills the column, it overbalances; this causes part of it to enter the water, cooling it and causing the fluid in the column to go back down, restoring the original state of balance. It requires a warm room and a cold glass of water, so it isn’t really perpetual motion; it’s (inefficiently) exploiting the movement of heat from a warm medium to a colder one. Also, some heat of the room will move directly into the cool water until the room and water are in thermal equilibrium…at which point the dipping bird won’t be dipping no more! - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2006, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/17 "2006-01-07T04:37:11Z")
Whatever you do, do not taunt Happy Drinking Bird. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/18 "2006-01-07T04:52:29Z")
[Here’s](http://www.backstreet.demon.co.uk/oddstuff/drinkingbirds/drinkingbirds.htm) a site with a collection of vintage Happy Drinking Birds. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/19 "2006-01-08T00:46:22Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > It would probably do a better job than Homer, in any case. It _did_, until it fell over. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-happy-drinking-bird/338553/20 "2006-01-12T03:14:50Z")
I couldn’t resist returning to this thread, much as a dog returns to its own vomit. The mad-monk scientist, engineer, whatever whose investigation into the work potential of the dipping bird is one Don Rathjen. And although I still haven’t found his own account of his experiment, I did manage to find a very nice [write-up](http://sci.vu.edu.au/~drw/dippybird/Dippybird.html) of same by one D.R. Watson, complete with a schematic drawing by Rathjen of the bird-powered “engine,” for the benefit of those of you who are considering making a dipping-bird-based attempt to live off of the electrical grid. These guys should hold a convention or something. I can see it now. They’ll all be wearing blue top hats and red clown shoes… 🙂