Interesting news story I ran across here this morning.
In short, an Egyptian statue, now resides in a Manchester museum, and appears to be turning ‘by itself’. Can anyone hazard an educated guess at the cause? (And I’m very certain it isn’t the spirit of of an Egyptian residing in the statue )
Personally I think its telling that the statue doesn’t appear to turn during the night, so presumably through some obscure combination of factors, vibrations from visitors movements (or from other source) is being transmitted to that exact spot.
The whole point of time-lapse photography is to make something seem to move without anything acting on it. See: Gumby and Ray Harryhausen. Now, if they had nonstop video, and it turned? That’d be something.
The base of the statue is on purpose shaped to be rounded. So that gentle rocking back and forth can cause it to walk …
It may be so accurately balanced that vibration can cause it to rock … and dynamic friction being less than static friction, it can twist due to imbalance ,eg due to slope of the base, the heavy nose swings ‘down’…
The museum staff would know how well balanced it is, and what they do to reset it … They may have sloped / modified the base to ensure this will happen.
I thought at first it was being moved by someone walking past, but it is not totally clear from the video that the statue is enclosed within a glass case. If you believe the museum’s curator, he holds the only key to to the case.
I realise the whole thing is probably a bit of publicity gimmick, but I’m hoping it’s more of a ‘huh that’s weird - lets leak this to the media’ than a ‘watch this cool video trick fellas!’ kind of event.
Well, that’s a point of time-lapse photography, but in this case its pretty clear that the point is that no one is going to sit through several days of security footage played in real-time. I seriously doubt the curator of the museum set it up as a hoax.
But I think people have already figured it out. It only moves during the day, and moves at a more or less constant rate, because that’s when people are walking around it, causing vibrations in the shelf its set on.
If the base is not truly flat, then it’s turning until the center of gravity is downhill from the pivot point (180 degrees). The curator turns it back, and over time with vibrations, it turns again… sort of like a swivel chair at an angle. Small vibrations from traffic and bypassers cause small movements that result in a turning motion.
Any chance they can, oh I don’t know, move the statue somewhere else and then see what happens? Like maybe a completely soundproof / vibration proof room with a slightly cushiony floor?
I doubt anyone cares enough to start building speciality rooms just to experiment on the thing (and even just moving it elsewhere probably involves a decent amount of paperwork). And in anycase, I think the camera footage more or less answered the question of what’s going on.
I think you’re confusing time-lapse photography with stop-motion photography. The former is used to make extremely slow motion, like plant growth or erosion, appear faster; the latter is used in animation.
I’m betting that if they put it on a piece of cloth or felt or anything else that would dampen vibrations, rather than having it sitting on bare glass, the “turning” would stop.
In the video, the “turning” seems to happen during daylight hours. So, my guess is: the air conditioning/heating/fan system. There’s probably a duct running near the case, or a motor in the wall or floor, something like that, which vibrates when turned on during the daytime.
They could easily put a higher-res, better-lit camera on it right where it is. I’d say it’s vibration from floor traffic and a bottom shaped just right to cause a “wobbler” like motion.
But they won’t… because I’d bet it has and will continue to increase that floor traffic as long as it’s a “mystery.”