Reaction ferries are really clever
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- On the river Rhine in Switzerland, there are reaction ferries: boats with no engine, no paddles, no onboard motive power at all. Here's how they work -- and a question about what other simple ideas are out there.
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I swear I'm not green-screened onto this: it's just weird lighting!
Tom Scott is your shirt green screened? Or Red screened, I bet Matt is wearing a blue screen
Tom Scott you are amazing
I didn't even notice until you pointed it out, but there is a bit of a weatherman effect going there haha
Cool video!
Btw, the same technique is used in whitewater kayaking, only instead of the wire holding you on the same level you paddel on one side of the boat to both keep you facing the right direction as well as not drifting downstream. I don't know why I wrote that, just some side info I found interesting .-.
when are you going to do a video on the time travel machine that you use to comment on your videos before they are posted?
I had never heard of these either. Very elegant.
The moment when two channels you watch cross...
And practical as well!
Is this a crossover episode?
@@elonwhatever No just a crossover viewing and comment.
Near my place we have a mill running on the same concept.
Just two small boats put together and a water weel in the middle.When ever the deed needs to be done, the boat is taken to the middle of the river and the curent does the rest.
Never thought I'd see Tom Scott do a reaction video...
It's ya boy Tom reacts
He did indeed
Nice!
take my like and leave
I never thought I'd bother watching a reaction video.
You should do a video on the Theory of Inventive problem solving. A Russian engineer spent his entire life studying patents to see how humans made solutions to stuff like this. It's now generalized into a few charts, and is really quite handy.
which engineer? would love to see these few charts.
@@haynakonobayan Genrich Altshuller
@@haynakonobayan Genrich Altshuller
Cool, I’d never heard of this before but seems fascinating
Good thing modern Russians haven’t heard of it ;)
My deceased uncle was the last person to operate such a ferry in my area, until it was destroyed by a major flood in 1936. He described how it worked to me many years ago. Under the ferry were 6 vanes (he called them vanes rather than rudders) and there was a lever (ie tiller) you moved in the direction you wanted to cross. It was the Androscoggin river in Maine, usa, it does not have that much current but the ferry worked fine.
If it's a weak Current, that may explain the need for those Vanes to get more leaverage out oft the Current.
The four Ferries in Basel don't need those, as the Rhine there is quite fast and strong all Year round (less Water in Autumn/Winter and more in Springtime/Summer but always plenty strong enough)
The oldestof those Reactionferries in Basel was buildt 1853, it was outside the City and doesn' exist anymore. The oldest of the four still running Ferries is from 1854 and they were very important in those Days, as there was only one single Bridge in Basel for over 800 Years. A second one was buildt in 1879 and a third one in 1882....
It's basically a kite. A water-kite, but the principle remains.
No a caboe cart..... kites are totally diffrent.
Cable cart*
@@detachsoup6061 I think it's closer to a water kite than a cable car. Like a kite, it's moved by fluid dynamics and held on by a rope. Unlike a cable cart, there's no motor involved.
I was thinking of a sailing boat ... instead of river current against the hull, it's air current over the sails ... same principle ...
"We floated a kite in a public river..."
If only I could hook on to something in space that's not moving I could kinda wake board the world muhahaha.
-Archimedes
ever heard of the siemens airhook?
Get a light and strong enough piece of string and something in high orbit and you will have trouble staying earthbound. Bad news is you need to get the center of mass to geostationary orbit. So you need around 36,000km of cable strong enough to support 36,000km of cable. Or so.
The line would sever the atmosphere
Instead of an overhead cable, can the line be submerged? Maybe while anchored to a singular point in the middle of the river, and the vessel can offer up more line to combat the radial physics? The journey would be 3.14 percent faster if my calculations are correct. Damn it feels good to be smart
I think I saw you. ;)
a small correction: they do have paddles on board. just in case something happens.
I think the very few people who live in Basel use the ferris regularly. I only use them during the carnival or when I'm babysitting young children.
what are you doing in Basel? I hope you had a good time.
greetings from Basel
(I can actually see my house in the background 😂)
Woah that's cool I've never lived near a big river and Its one thing that I would like to do. But I live in Australia so I might not Be able to do this
Just curious -- how is babysitting young children related to the need to use the ferry?
Dugroz Reports likely because it’s a nice thing to take a kid down to the river and take the ferry across. A pleasant morning or afternoon outing!
How long does a crossing take?
@@lukasg4807 7ish minutes if i had to guess.. never timed it
Powered boats can do this too. They can motor up against the current to match the speed of the current. That way they can be stationary with the land and yet move sideways! It can help manoeuvre in tight spaces (Though very few skippers seem to know how to do it, despite its simplicity and usefulness).
Funnily enough, it's called ferry gliding! And now I know why :)
Kayakers do this to, using either paddle powder or a wave
Growing up in Bern, Switzerland, I absolutely loved it every time I'd cross the Aare river in one of these ferries. (The one over the Aare near Bern is much smaller.)
Paradox I läbä grad ar Aare :D
I know one of the ferry men. We once ate fondue for silvster in the ferry-house. Was awesome.
why, why not just walk over a bridge
es esch de rhii ond ned aare
I'm from Osijek in Croatia and the one here is a lot bigger, it's about the size of a floating house and i remember loving crossing the river on it as a kid.
I ponder with this what have we missed question a lot. I love the feeling of envy when i see someone create/simplify something that I feel I was capable of also discovering
The question you proposed at the end is a lot like the standard shipping container, which wasn't even made till the 20th century
Wendover has a good video on the topic
Some guy named Tom Scott also has a video on the subject, "The Giant Cranes and Robots That Keep Civilization Running"
@@TankDerek who? Never heard of him
This also works without elevated wire, e.g. on the River Elbe in Rathen, Germany.
The tow-wire goes from the ship to one river bank. Otherwise, the reaction ferry (in German: Gierseilfähre) operates in the way described above. Obviously, river traffic is blocked when the ferry is on the opposite side of the wire's anchor.
Your conclusion about they things we might have missed really made me think about Mr Old's Remarkable Elevator!
Same.
I'm guessing Fermat's Last Theorem is one such case.
Fermat's Last Theorem was solved in 1994 by Andrew Wiles.
Was it a simple solution?
Ask the Doctor from Doctor Who.
No, the paper is 109 pages long.
I found I wild Cody! :D
Switzerland! Nice!
Nice is in France, not Switzerland
P. J. Ray He meant the "Nice" at the end of Marco's comment, it was a joke.
Wow, all the other comments got deleted. Tom?
what? where is basel in germany?
Basel is very swiss, but special ;)
but it is NOT in france or Germany, those towns are called St. Louis and Weil am Rhein (where we go to buy ludicrously cheap food)
I knew about this concept long time before but still watched the video to see how you presented the topic. I honestly don't know anyone else who could have made such a great simple short video about it and make people think in the end.. Thank you for producing great videos for us to enjoy!
As a canoeist, there is something called "ferry gliding" where you use the flow of water or force of the wind to move a canoe across a body of water.
the longest fresh water ferry I presume ?!
I am a Swiftwater Rescue Technician and we use this principle often. Love your videos.
Fondue because Switzerland
There are tons of ferries like this in the Netherlands too! They sometimes have propulsion but also have a cable under the water to an anchor and swing back and forth.
One of my favorite youtubers talks about the city i live in. Awesome.
Tom, I enjoy your hopeful behaviour. Please never cease.
It would've been a pretty sweet video anyways, but then that wrap-up fricken crushed it home! Great job and thanks as always for the learning experience and informative, thought-provoking content.
I was clueless about this until now. Thank you for the knowledge and exposure to this clever solution.
I really hope that there is something like this for interstellar travel. A simple solution, that after its done, we just go "why didn't we think of that sooner?"
There is. It's called gravity assist. Look it up
@@Renard380 Isn't that what they do in Interstellar?
As a kid I used to swim across a fast part of a river, by using the current, and little effort. I have since employed that principal many times getting logs across rivers, by a fix line, or even myself in the wilderness. I thought it was intuitus, it really shows you not to take anything for granted.
Love the Swiss flag on the wire. The Swiss will put their flag on everything.
They have reasons to be proud of their country. I envy them..
Greetings from Tim's video!
I was directly over this crossing a year ago, took panoramic photos, enjoyed the view, yet never once noticed the string with flags, the fact that it had no power being applied, or any clue what was going on with the "obvious" solution they had come up with!
The 3-d printer is such an idea. For years and years we dreamt of it, then someone came along who made one, and once you see how it works, it's so logical and obvious that you can't believe we didn't have them much much sooner.
Being fair, the earliest 3D printers could've entered commercial use isn't far off from the time they did.
Well, 3D printers require beefy computers that can perform all the calculations necessary to (1) build a 3D model, and (2) convert the 3D model to positioning instructions of the 3D head.
I think this was rather unachievable before Core2 Duo came out, or whereabout that time.
@@PanduPoluan A 75MHz pentium could run quake realtime. A printhead moved by two servos is not more complicated than that by any stretch of the imagination.
If a computer no more powerful than a gameboy can take us to space, a pentium can 3d-print us some stuff
It takes precision mechanical engineering, not necessarily computing power
3d printing started in the late 80s in industrial applications and spent two decades being refined to a point where it was a viable consumer product. The only miracle that happened in the 2010s was the patents expired.
An outstanding solution to a challenging problem. I was unaware of this system until I watched this video. Thank you.
I was visiting Basel years back for a day and we used one of these ferries. Was a great experience.
I like how you can take a small learning for yourself and step back and make an observation about the human condition. I've seen this in a couple of your videos and it what takes them to being a cut above ordinary. Thank you.
The most elegant solution is always the simplest.
My favorite kind of engineering.
That tower in the background of the opening shot looks as if it's about to fall over!
There's gonna be three of those... Took some time getting used to those monoliths. It's the HQ of Hoffmann - La Roche ( Roche )
I love how Tom Scott thumbnails are just casual educational shitposts.
"no engine; still fast"
watched this video a while ago, and returning to say that since then I have ridden on one of these in germany while visiting the bastei rock formations! the ferry crossed the elbe river and it used a wire that ran mostly underwater, not above like the one in the video. it was the only way across at that point (no bridges so it was very necessary and useful!) which I was glad for because I had wanted to take a ride on one since seeing this :) thanks for the great video!
What a great invention!
And, what a great perspective from Tom Scott: "What else have I, and all humans, missed up until now...?"
Whoop whoop! Basel!
Lars Sturm Het die beschte RUclipsr dört!
Fawlty?
my name
I didn't use these too often, but depending on where I was going I genuinely used these a few times because they were the most convenient way to get across the river
please, more videos from Basel
the Roche building in the background is one of my favourites in the world. I know lots of people in Basel don't like it (including my grandpa, who lives there) but I think it's beautiful
Essentially it is a linear turbine blade. Or a rotary one of infinite diameter, if that makes more sense.
Infinite diameter always makes more sense.
Or a very slow water-skier.
it's sailing using water currents instead of air currents/wind. Nothing new to a sailor, sailors of sailboats basically have to take this into account on fast flowing water as they need to air to be the one giving more force anchored against the reactions on the keel/center board to go in the right direction.
When you said the end there I had a crazy thought: use the waves and tides to lift the heavy weight of a gravity battery up a pole that is a like a ratchet so that when it’s lifted it keeps stepping up the pole and doesn’t slide back down. When it reaches the top of the pole it can have an automatic release and drop to the ground. While it drops it will generate electricity. This can be fed to the grid or charge a battery. If you created a farm of these it would work day and night and the different gravity generators would rise and fall in a steady but randomized way that would be consistent on the average.
The fact that they dry their washing on the tether wire shows they’re really maximising the potential of this system.
That's definitely not laundry.
@@veikkakarvonen831 Shirts from the tourists who never made it....like on Everest.
Well, I am not reading through 843 comments but reaction ferries are prevalent in many places I am sure. I live in British Columbia, Canada where the terrain is mountainous and we have many swiftly flowing rivers. Reaction ferries are to be found on many of them. I have had trips across many of BC's rivers on some of these ferries. As a boy, my father hauled tons of sawlogs from our place over an intervening river to a sawmill with a 5-ton truck. We would be the only vehicle crossing when the truck was full. The pontoons of the ferry would sink quite a ways into the fast flowing current and then we would be off for about a 10 minute ride. Lot's of good memories.
Thank you for all the videos. Very much enjoyed and appreciated.
It's exactly how sailboats tack into the wind, only the sailboats use the water as the resistance and the wind to supply the power. Here, the cable provides the resistance and the water the power. Which I just noticed somehow has already posted but it's worth repeating.
If the cable was hidden underwater imagine how mysterious this would look.
Welcome to switzerland :)
Hope you'll enjoy your stay, are you coming over to zurich by any chance?
I loved how, in addition to the usually informative video this one was also inspirational. Great job Tom. Thank you.
There is one of these crossing the Danube near me except that it's way bigger than these. It takes about 10 cars at a time and is actually the only way across for quite some distance.
An encyclopedia about this boat would say "it works like this in this place since this year".
A Tom Scott video about this boat makes you wonder about the entire human existence, in a good way
A very cool thought. And it's this simplicity in design that I love the most.
This is very similar to the "Direct Down Wind Faster Than The Wind" concept where two media are in motion with respect to one another providing energy for the vehicle.
One variation used in the past in our local river was a swing ferry. It was connected by a cable to a piling set in the middle of the river, and was steered back and forth against the current.
Flying is just throwing yourself at the ground and missing
That's orbiting.
I was JUST about to say that, Paul XD
I was JUST about to say that, OblivionFall! XD
hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Flying
Yeah, but for as brilliant a writer as Douglas Adams was, he wasn't exactly a scientist.
I normally hate the wholesomeness of Tom but this message just got me, gave hope in some sense. I too wonder what kind of awesome solutions havent been discovered yet. Eternal wonders of the world.
We do the same for Swift Water Rescue with a highline over a river and an inflatable rescue canoe. Works very well.
You mean stuff like: Water as ballast (instead of concrete) inside washing machines right?
omg! why.. just why i didnt think of this before. it's seems so simple, easy and obvious.
Things grow in water they don't grow in concrete. And you have the problem of what of the tank brakes?
Sand or dirt works. You can put them in once they're installed and drain them to lighten the washing machine to transport it just like water.
What if you used the incoming water to push out the old water and used the old water to wash your clothes? The old water would probably only be a few days old, and you could add a "purge" feature if the operator knew the water was older than this.
on second thought, there are a lot more moving parts to this. Maybe it is just better to use heavy concrete. And when your friends ask you for help moving, ask if there is a washing machine involved.
there are still quite a few of these in BC, Canada that are integral parts of our rural highways.
That's almost exactly how you cross a river in a canoe or kayak without drifting downstream. Point the nose towards the opposite bank at about 30 degrees, lean slightly downstream and paddle occasionally on the downstream side to avoid being pushed downriver. The steeper the angle you use the faster you go across, but also the more effort you have to put in to keep from being pushed downriver. It's known as "ferry gliding."
Well the very obvious thing that most humans have missed is time travel. Once you get it it is very obvious.
I saw what you will have done there.
Yes it does.
But, does it work?
I'm time-travelling with 60 seconds per minute. It works.
I was thinking the exact same thing tomorrow.
Near my place we have a mill running on the same concept.
Just two small boats put together and a water weel in the middle.When ever the deed needs to be done, the boat is taken to the middle of the river and the curent does the rest.
It's great when you understand how and why they work without it even being told. Hats of for great engineering.
Simple, magic. Thanks for that one Tom.
Here in Holland we still have car ferries using this concept. But instead of a cable going from one side to the other we use a anchor in the middle of the river. This way you dont have height restrictions.
You should check out the reaction ferries on the Fraser River in British Columbia. And its happened in the past that a cable snapped and the ferry went for an unscheduled down-river cruise!
now it's a white water raft excursion.
There are many of these in the USA, I have crossed many of these ferries in the Ozark Mountains and also on the Willamette River in Oregon.
Fun fact: in canoeing, crossing a river from one bank to the other is done in essentially the same manner (just without the cable), and is called "ferrying".
Basel is a port city. In Switzerland. Which means that Switzerland has a merchant marine.
There are others on the Rhine. A car carrying reaction ferry connects Plittersdorf in Germany with Seltz in France and another on the River Elbe near Räbel in eastern Germany.
Great and rare ideas are often the simplest solutions to a problem.
I've not seen one before, but as an avid river canoist and kayaker this makes absolute sense and is a technique I regularly use.
Genius use of the river's current.
Just discovered them this summer on a roadtrip through B.C. Canada. Game changer!
Wow, simple but incredible idea!
I'm from that area, from the german side! So nice to see it in a video!
I actually live just next to such a ferry. The one I can see from my window is much bigger and can load 10 cars or so. It is really fascinating, but I just don't like it for commuting because here the ferry has no scheldue, and waiting about half an hour can be quite annoying. Glad I only enjoy it on Sunday trips or so. Great video.
this is like waterskiing behind a boat.
you created a tension on the rope and water moves under you, by steering left and right you can change your position compared to the boat.
it doesn't matter wether its an object dragging itself across standing water or if its a standing object next to (or over) moving water.
never seen these before but yea, brilliantly simple and one of those, "why haven't i thought of this before?" things. thanks for this video.
The Saint Clare River between the US and Canada would be a good place for such a ferry, except for the fact that is also an international waterway with Ocean and Large Great Lakes freighters so the wire or cable would have to be very high for those ships to pass through.
Wow im amazed how fast flowing the rhine is compared to something like the Thames
Look at you Tom, giving us hope for humanity !
Leonardo da Vinci built one on the Adda river in Italy. There is still one in place in Imbersago.
Brilliant. Simplicity at its best.
2022 here. I just watched The Tim Travellers video on these and he gave you a shout-out, so here I am :)
And now, everyone is trying to think of this thing everyone's missed. Thanks, Tom. Now I won't get anything done all day.
I have a few of these near where I live in Poland but instead of a rudder there are 2 cables attached to the boat one at the front and one at the back of the boat connecting to a cable going across the river and you set the boat across by shortening and lengthening these cables with a crank
That is so interesting.
I guess to a certain extent you could scale it up or down as needed.
Cheaper than building a foot bridge over a small river or creek for pedestrians.
We've missed so much more.. I myself have scrambled myself with a way to achieve levitation without propellers. It's a very simple principle and nobody have thought about it yet, that's why I don't share it yet. I did not build the entire model yet and I don't have the time and energy required to focus on that yet as it's directed to some more tangible projects.
I'm surprised that so many people never heard of these. They aren't unique to Switzerland either. I got one for cars in Croatia, main connection between two cities across the Sava, the nearest bridges are either going across the border in Slovenia od 20km around via highway. They are considering a bridge now in 2021 but nothing more than planing at this stage. Hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people per day cross via one of these (albeit larger, firts four cars).
I like this Tom, what a great thought to consider. I/we miss things all the time, helps me keep an open mind and hopefully avoid arrogance. We all miss something due to the lens we view things through, but grasping that leads to great discovery and insights, GOOD STUFF!! Love your videos Tom
Grant Teton national park (right next to Yellowstone) has one of these in the original old raft style a town had used. It is open to the public to ride (I think for free)
Mom, Tom Scott is in a place again!
Close to my home city Linz/Austria there is one sized to carry multiple cars (up tp 4 or 6 I think) at Ottensheim. Though it has a support engine, it should usually operate without it.
I think it is a Leonardo da Vinci's principle. There is the same across the Adda River in Imbersago town.
I grew up near the Danube River, next to ferries like this. They are a bit like sailing but on a current not the wind. Clearly a smart idea. And back in their times a good investment, I guess.
I used to catch this ferry to work! Much more relaxing than the Tube.
Thats incredible! How has someone not applied this concept for electricity generation I wonder?