bowling ball

The Life-Size Mousetrap


   

Mark Perez's life-size Mousetrap rig is a 10-year labor of love. This Rube Goldbergian contraption sends a bowling ball through a bevy of component steps, all resulting in a two-ton bank safe dropping on the poor mouse's cheese. Or at least that's what supposed to happen—but if it ran perfectly every time, it wouldn't be quite as exciting, right? The semi-unsuccessful run in the video above was offset by Perez's very successful marriage proposal to his girlfriend before the action began (she plays the mouse in the show). Highly adorable.

Mousetrap_2

Perez readies a trigger. He's a married man now!

Time Travel Made (Relatively) Easy

If we wish to travel through time, we must be able to control it, to mold it to our own desires and specifications...

If we wish to travel through time, we must be able to control it, to mold it to our own desires and specifications. This is possible only through Einstein's theory of relativity. Instead of imagining space as an immutable structure, part of Einstein's genius was realizing that space and time are interlinked in a single, pliable framework called space-time. Both space and time can be distorted, sometimes dramatically. Time travel requires nothing more than exploiting those distortions to create a path through time that ends earlier-or much later-than it begins.

[ Read Full Story ]

PROMOTION

POPSCI'S 21ST ANNUAL BEST OF WHAT'S NEW


Every year, PopSci honors the top 100 innovations in categories such as consumer products, medical tech and engineering.

Learn more and submit your product or technology today at popsci.com/enter.

Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!

PPX: The PopSci Predictions Exchange

RSS Link

New IPO

Hot Stocks

Ready to bet on the future? Start here!

Subscribe for 2 free issues!

may2008_cover.jpg