Thursday, May 29, 2008

Tesla's Vibrating Platform, aka, The Treadmill

There's a story of Mark Twain visiting the New York laboratory of Nikola Tesla where Tesla invites Twain to stand on a vibrating platform. As Twain enjoyed the pleasurable vibrations, and ignored Tesla's suggestions to get off of the platform, Twain was suddenly forced to jump and run for the bathroom. It seems that Tesla failed to inform Twain of the laxative effects of the platform.

In my basement laboratory, I have a Precor treadmill. This week because of twin duty before their summer program starts, I have been running my 6 miles on the treadmill. By the time I get to 5 miles, I feel movement, and at 6 miles I'm off and running doing my Twain imitation. A hundred years later, and I can still hear Tesla laughing.

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