Escape the Frictionless Circle

[speising]

More:

Spoiler:

As stated, when the rope is spilled out by 40m, you negate any spin momentum by spinning on the spot, moving the rope end from hand to hand.
The momentum at the other end is the spin in the block and the directional momentum from where you pushed it.

Consider now that the energy on you is a zero value, (we can now ignore the spin momentum on me) the rope is taut, but the block contains both directional momentum and spin momentum, therefore, there is more energy at the gold end that at your end.

Thus, the block will continue to move in the same direction, albeit at a slower rate and start to unwind that spin momentum, which it has been doing all the time of its travel, ergo, the gold block will now start to pull you and you and the block are traveling in the SAME direction.

Who cares if the block continues to spin and coil the rope, YOU have directional momentum and will achieve the edge eventually.
Probably very dizzy from all that spinning.

PS

Spoiler:

I misunderstood what you meant by negating spin, but as it turns out spin isn't relevant to why it can't work anyway.

If the gold block does something to pull in the rope, or if you do something to pull in the rope, a tension is applied to the rope and it pulls on both you and the block equally. There's no way to get around that basic Newtonian fact of the matter.

tl;dr If A + B = C + D, but A is negated, then B <> C + D, ergo you are pulled.

How do you stop spinning without imparting angular momentum to something else?

[gmalivuk]

Consider now that the energy on you is a zero value, (we can now ignore the spin momentum on me) the rope is taut, but the block contains both directional momentum and spin momentum, therefore, there is more energy at the gold end that at your end.

Thus, the block will continue to move in the same direction, albeit at a slower rate and start to unwind that spin momentum, which it has been doing all the time of its travel, ergo, the gold block will now start to pull you and you and the block are traveling in the SAME direction.

No, this won't happen. The block pulls on you as hard as you pull on the block. It pulls you towards itself, but in so doing it pulls itself toward you. You and the block start by moving away from each other with the same linear momentum (but you're moving faster because you're lighter). Then you both stop moving away from each other (because F=ma means your lighter mass will be decelerated more, and both you and the block will come to a stop after the same amount of force is applied for the same amount of time).

The fact that the block (and you) are spinning around your respective centers of mass has nothing to do with where those centers of mass move relative to each other. The fact that the block winds up the rope just means it transfers its own angular momentum into its own linear momentum. Your own linear momentum responds by changing in exactly an equal-and-opposite way, and you and the spinning block start moving back towards each other.

Exactly the same thing would happen if the gold block were another person who just started pulling in rope at the same rate the spinning gold block would wind it up.

[SDK]

Everything in your post is correct, except this part.

but you're moving faster because you're lighter

Doesn't change the fact that spinning doesn't get you anywhere though.

[gmalivuk]

How is that part not right?

[elliptic]

More:

Spoiler:

As stated, when the rope is spilled out by 40m, you negate any spin momentum by spinning on the spot, moving the rope end from hand to hand.
The momentum at the other end is the spin in the block and the directional momentum from where you pushed it.

Consider now that the energy on you is a zero value, (we can now ignore the spin momentum on me) the rope is taut, but the block contains both directional momentum and spin momentum, therefore, there is more energy at the gold end that at your end.

Thus, the block will continue to move in the same direction, albeit at a slower rate and start to unwind that spin momentum, which it has been doing all the time of its travel, ergo, the gold block will now start to pull you and you and the block are traveling in the SAME direction.

Who cares if the block continues to spin and coil the rope, YOU have directional momentum and will achieve the edge eventually.
Probably very dizzy from all that spinning.

PS

Spoiler:

I misunderstood what you meant by negating spin, but as it turns out spin isn't relevant to why it can't work anyway.

If the gold block does something to pull in the rope, or if you do something to pull in the rope, a tension is applied to the rope and it pulls on both you and the block equally. There's no way to get around that basic Newtonian fact of the matter.

tl;dr If A + B = C + D, but A is negated, then B <> C + D, ergo you are pulled.

Here's the set-up (ignoring your own spin which plays no part as you correctly note).



What you apparently think you're doing is converting the gold block's spin into your own linear momentum.

What you're *actually* doing is exchanging the block's angular momentum for angular momentum of *both* bodies round the common c.o.m, while the linear momentum being imparted to you gets balanced by an opposite change in the block's linear momentum.

Here's a force diagram:



The offset pull from the rope on the gold block resolves to a linear force through its c.o.m. and a couple acting against the block's spin. Also note that the tension in the rope doesn't act through the common c.o.m. so there's *another* couple acting on the combined system which opposes the first one. Thats how the angular momentum is accounted for - as the two bodies are pulled together the block's rate of spin slows down but instead we now have a rotation of the whole system around the common c.o.m. which wasn't there before.

Meanwhile the linear forces on the blocks are simply the tension on the rope, hence obviously equal and opposing. So there can be no change in the combined linear momentum and the c.o.m. *does not move*.

[lordofthesnails]

So here's a physics solution:

Spoiler:

Gold, like every other element, has a rate of radioactive decay. And the rope does not connect you to the radioactively expelled protons, neutrons and electrons that aren't gold any more.

The only thing that doesn't have a rate of radioactive decay is you. Because the rules explicitly state that you can't expel anything from your body. So you're not allowed to decay, even if the laws of physics want you to.

In theory you could get as far away from the gold as possible and then wait a very long time until the gold decays, which would shift your center of mass away from the center of the circle. The more the gold decays, the further your center of mass would get. But I think the furthest you can ever shift in this manner is 50 meters plus half the length of your body, since that's the furthest you can get from the gold. So, while this would be some sort of progress, it wouldn't be a solution, unless you're 50 meters tall.

If that's allowed...

Spoiler:

Even a single electron leaving a moving gold block is enough give your system momentum. Push the block away, stop at the end of the tether and then ride your miniscule momentum to the edge of the circle.

[SDK]

How is that part not right?

Because I'm bad at math. This cube is, in fact, 160 kg, not 8 kg. That kickstarter just got a whole lot harder.

[BigNose]

Last gasp

Spoiler:

Consider the point at which the rope is at 40m out.
During that period, the gold block with the rope wrapping around it, is storing energy.
As the rope is not wrapping around you, the total energy is in your spin and not in the spin and momentum.
The gold block will have slowed as it would have been pulling on against both you and the energy built into the rope as it wrapped around the gold block.
At that point, you have the same amount of energy as the gold block spinning and moving.

The rope is taut at 40m and you are spinning.
The rope has 10m wrapped around the block which is also spinning, but the golf block won't stop its momentum, as the energy released is a continuation of the momentum PLUS spin you applied, with now the reverse spin on the gold block, as it begins to unwind the stored energy in the wrapped rope.

The only way that the gold can unwind, is if it has momentum, otherwise it would simply spin on the spot, winding and unwinding the rope length of 10m.

If it does, then simply pull only the rope when it is fully coiled around the gold. As you have only spin energy and you are pulling against a static object with spin energy (the same as yours), then you will start to move back together. Simply split your legs as you pass the gold, out to the edge.

PS Don't forget to let go of the rope Bollox! You can't be separated from the rope!

[gmalivuk]

During that period, the gold block with the rope wrapping around it, is storing energy.

No, it isn't.

The gold block will have slowed as it would have been pulling on against both you and the energy built into the rope as it wrapped around the gold block.

No, it won't. The block spinning with a rope that isn't taut isn't slowing down at all, because the rope doesn't impart any force until it's taut. (This is why there's no energy stored in the wound-up rope.)

The rope has 10m wrapped around the block which is also spinning, but the golf block won't stop its momentum, as the energy released is a continuation of the momentum PLUS spin you applied, with now the reverse spin on the gold block, as it begins to unwind the stored energy in the wrapped rope.

The only way that the gold can unwind, is if it has momentum, otherwise it would simply spin on the spot, winding and unwinding the rope length of 10m.

If the gold still has enough linear momentum to continue in its same linear direction and reverse its rotational direction to unwind, then it hasn't stopped you from moving away from the center, it's just slowed you down. It gives up linear momentum to reverse the direction of its rotational momentum, but it takes the same amount of linear momentum from you, because to reverse its rotational direction it applies a tension on the rope, which pulls both it and you toward the center with the same force.

The spin is a red herring. It doesn't magically let you avoid considering what actually happens to the linear momentum of the bodies involved.

[Sableagle]

I diguise myself as an unarmed black teenager. 30 x 7.45 g x 390 m/s = 87,165 gm/s, so a couple of magazines from a Ferguson PD hero ought to get me doing about 39 cm or 1¼ feet per second away from him. The magic keeps me in perfect health, and by the time he's finished deleting his body camera footage I'll have slid to the edge.

[Freddino18]

Response to previous post: WHY?!

Going back to the "grow fingernails until they are long enough" approach, it would actually be easier (and faster) to grow out your hair.

Based on the CDC's estimate of about six inches' worth of hair growth per year for the average person, it would take about 116 years to grow your hair long enough to reach the edge (maybe less, depending on starting length and relative growth speed). This could be reduced to as short as four days to reach the edge with a single strand sourced from all the hairs on your body (based on another estimate that all of the hair on your body grows by a total of about 30 ft per day). Every four days, you could add another strand to your hair rope, and as they would still be attached to your body (by the base strand), this does not violate the rule against ejecting mass. In fact, if you have any sort of length of existing hair on your body, you can start out with a multi-strand "head start", drastically reducing your time to escape. This idea could be combined with the previous one, by creating a hair whip to aggravate the cop.

Another idea, stolen from another thread, would be to have a negative mass with equal but opposite mass as you+the gold block, which would serve to provide propulsion without violating the law of conservation of momentum (negative mass means negative momentum).

I actually did my doctoral dissertation on negative mass, but mostly on cosmological scales.

A matched pair of positive and negative mass particles would indeed accelerate forever. This doesn't violate conservation of energy, since the negative mass has negative kinetic energy.

Generalizing, a gas with negative mass and positive mass particles would have particles of both masses have their average particle speeds increase without bound. The temperature would not increase since a negative mass gas has negative temperature. Since we do not observe this, we can be confident that there are no negative mass particles in the universe. (I'm not super confident about the exact details of the gas situation. It's been years since I've looked at this stuff.)

Edit: After leaving the circle, I would get patents for/sell: the gold, the tether, the negative mass object, the circle, and the magic life/health stuff (as EverLife 9 ³/₄)

[LaserGuy]

I think the first response is probably basically right. You just need to fall over. Wrap the rope around yourself until you have a taut line connecting you and the block. You should have a large angle connecting the little block to your torso... your collective centre of mass, then, must be somewhat higher than the block, or, at least, higher than the centre of mass of the block alone. If you fall outward, your centre of mass will be reduced in height and will move away from the block. Since the centre of mass moves outward, it must have a small velocity in the radial direction, and since there's no friction, this should persist indefinitely and carry you out.

[jaap]

If you fall outward,

That's a big if. How do you fall outward if your feet slide inward?

[Eebster the Great]

The puzzle as phrased has only gimmicky solutions. Changing the center of mass of a system requires an unbalanced external force. In the idealized scenario, making reasonable assumptions (e.g. level ground, no magnetic field), the only external force on the system is gravity, which is exactly balanced by the normal force on the ground, and friction, which by hypothesis is zero within the circle. This leads to the conclusion that any solution requires a part of the system reaching the ground outside the circle while the system's center of mass remains at its center.

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

[Sizik]

Stand to top of the block. Spin in place, causing the block to spin in the opposite direction, conserving angular momentum. Keep spinning faster and faster, until the gold block flattens and expands outwards far enough to reach the edge of the circle.

This assumes the rope won't be twisted up in the process.

[Soupspoon]

From conservation of angular momentum, I predict that your rate of counterspinning will be by far the most notable and, edicts against permanent personal injuries aside, you would more obviously be centripetally flattened out (or worse!) beyond the frictionless surface limit.

So maybe that's when you succeed. Need to compare the elastic modulus and elastic limit of your magically-sustained physique to that of the gold, of course, to work out which event precedes...

[Sizik]

From conservation of angular momentum, I predict that your rate of counterspinning will be by far the most notable and, edicts against permanent personal injuries aside, you would more obviously be centripetally flattened out (or worse!) beyond the frictionless surface limit.

So maybe that's when you succeed. Need to compare the elastic modulus and elastic limit of your magically-sustained physique to that of the gold, of course, to work out which event precedes...

I was assuming that the "magically staying alive" bit would keep you're shape together, but it could also allow for personal flattening to happen as well.

Also, as the radius of the gold increases, you can jog around in a circle instead of spinning.

[latrion]

I think a lot of people are on the right track with the "creating rotational momentum" thing, then trying to turn that angular momentum into linear momentum.

Here's what I think may work. So first, ya gotta get the block spinning. You could do this by either standing on it and spinning yourself in one direction (doing some weird dance thing, that would get the block spinning in the opposite direction), or by sitting next to it and spinning the block with your hands (you'd rotate too, so it'd be a little awkward, plus the rope my strangle you). In either case, both you and the block are now rotating about a vertical axis in opposite directions.

Now, the trick to shifting Center of Mass is to try and translate some of that angular momentum from the block into your own linear momentum, but I think you can do that. It'll be a little awkward, but basically you need to get whacked by the block at some point near your own center of mass (the point that this vertical axis goes through). If you're hit by the block outside of this axis, then some of the angular momentum that is lost by the block hitting you will only go into causing you to lose your own angular momentum, which we dont care about. But if you're whacked (where the vector of the whack points towards your own center of mass), then the block loses angular momentum but you don't lose or gain any angular momentum. This momentum, I suspect, is instead converted into linear momentum.

Before yall say "well if it hits you, its going to move backwards too and so the system's CoM doesn't shift", I'm pretty sure that, while yes it may move backwards a little bit, it still lost some angular momentum that was NOT converted into my own angular momentum, meaning that I must have a little bit extra linear momentum that the block doesn't cancel out with.

Thoughts?

[gmalivuk]

No, it won't work, because it will move backwards with exactly the same amount of linear momentum it imparted to you, and the center of mass will stay where it is. The collision turns some of the block's rotational momentum into you and the block's linear momentum.

[Pfhorrest]

If I am magically invincible, and so is the tether, but the block of gold is not, is there any way to set up enough rotation (gradually powered by my own muscles) that the G-forces involved distort the gold into a long enough shape to contact the outside?

If I am not magically invincible, does it count as "breaking the tether" if the tether breaks me? When the two halves of my body are flung to the outside, do I still win post-mortem?

EDIT: I should read the whole thread before I post.

[Freddino18]

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

I admit that part of my response was gimmicky, but that was the part where I was attempting to shorten the time it would take to under a century. Eventually, your hair would grow long enough to escape the circle without you having to do anything, but it is intended to be a last-ditch effort. In the meantime, the occupant should focus on alternative means of escape.

Spoiler:

THE SPIN IS A LIE

[Eebster the Great]

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

I admit that part of my response was gimmicky, but that was the part where I was attempting to shorten the time it would take to under a century. Eventually, your hair would grow long enough to escape the circle without you having to do anything, but it is intended to be a last-ditch effort.

Well, technically your hair does stop growing after a while and sometime later fall out. If your magical immortality and preservation from injury also holds your hair in your skull, then it will simply be impossible to remove, but it should still attain a maximum length. Otherwise, you can just keep collecting hair and braiding it together into rope I suppose. But by that logic, all the other gimmicky solutions work too. If I am immortal and my hand cannot be injured, there is no reason I couldn't eventually beat a block of gold into thread.

[Freddino18]

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

I admit that part of my response was gimmicky, but that was the part where I was attempting to shorten the time it would take to under a century. Eventually, your hair would grow long enough to escape the circle without you having to do anything, but it is intended to be a last-ditch effort.

Well, technically your hair does stop growing after a while and sometime later fall out. If your magical immortality and preservation from injury also holds your hair in your skull, then it will simply be impossible to remove, but it should still attain a maximum length. Otherwise, you can just keep collecting hair and braiding it together into rope I suppose. But by that logic, all the other gimmicky solutions work too. If I am immortal and my hand cannot be injured, there is no reason I couldn't eventually beat a block of gold into thread.

By the rules of the original post, the hair cannot fall out, as it would violate the mass ejection rule. Also, hair doesn't reach a maximum length due to a stoppage of growth (at first),^[1] it stops getting longer because of breakage, which also violates the ejection rule. Therefore, it is possible to grow your hair out to these outrageous lengths.

[Eebster the Great]

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

I admit that part of my response was gimmicky, but that was the part where I was attempting to shorten the time it would take to under a century. Eventually, your hair would grow long enough to escape the circle without you having to do anything, but it is intended to be a last-ditch effort.

Well, technically your hair does stop growing after a while and sometime later fall out. If your magical immortality and preservation from injury also holds your hair in your skull, then it will simply be impossible to remove, but it should still attain a maximum length. Otherwise, you can just keep collecting hair and braiding it together into rope I suppose. But by that logic, all the other gimmicky solutions work too. If I am immortal and my hand cannot be injured, there is no reason I couldn't eventually beat a block of gold into thread.

By the rules of the original post, the hair cannot fall out, as it would violate the mass ejection rule. Also, hair doesn't reach a maximum length due to a stoppage of growth (at first),^[1] it stops getting longer because of breakage, which also violates the ejection rule. Therefore, it is possible to grow your hair out to these outrageous lengths.

That article is wrong on some points. Hair does indeed stop growing after a genetically predetermined period of time when it enters the catagen phase, in which the hair follicle disintegrates and the strand is cut off and pushed away from the blood supply, forming a club hair. This is followed by the telogen phase, when the follicle remains dormant in the epidermis, typically for months. When the follicle does begin to grow again, it forms a new hair, pushing the club hair out. There is no mechanism that could allow a club hair strand to begin growth again, since it is no longer attached to the follicle.

It's sort of like how if the person in the problem were an infant whose deciduous teeth had just started to come in, the specification that teeth can't fall out wouldn't mean that they would just grow forever to indefinite length. They would still have the exact same length they always would, but they would just never be pushed out by the permanent teeth below.

At least, that's how I envision this working. Obviously it's biologically impossible, so I guess you could take it to mean whatever you want.

[bjazz]

I have skimmed, but not read all, of the responses and have a suggestion that relies on two ideas:
1. There is friction between you and the block.
2. There is potential energy in the system (you are upright and can fall down) that can be converted into horizontal momentum using that friction.
You do that by standing on the block, then leaning over until you fall off.

When you are standing on the block, the center of mass (COM) of the you-block system is on a line between your COM and the COM of the block. If you begin to lean one direction, the block will start to slide in the opposite direction, keeping the system COM above the same point of the floor. Keep yourself stiff, and as you fall, pivot around the point that your shoe touches the block, ending your fall with mostly downward momentum as the block scoots away from you. As you hit the ground, you are no longer in contact with the block. The rope uncoils, and when it gets taut it starts pulling you along (albeit more slowly) to the edge.

Some analogies to help visualize:
1. If a squishy ball is dropped straight down onto a frictionless floor, I assume it will deform equally in all directions, and disperse the vertical momentum as heat and noise without changing any horizontal momentum. If you are falling straight down, you'll do the same, essentially erasing any vertical momentum without imparting any horizontal forces. So after your fall, your vertical momentum is dissipated, leaving only the horizontal momentum of the system.
2. Picture a broomstick on a frictionless floor, standing upright with its head in the air so it's in an unstable state. It will fall over, but because it is rigid it will rotate so its COM remains above the same point on the floor. The end of the stick will slide horizontally away from the COM point until the broom COM hits the ground, again dissipating any vertical momentum with a clatter of noise and deformation.
3. Picture the same broomstick on a floor with friction. Now the end of the stick won't slide away, but will be resisted by a horizontally applied frictional force. The broomstick will rotate, pivoting around the end of the stick, and end with its COM offset from the original point on the floor. As it pivots, its angular momentum will be increasingly directed into the floor until the broom is horizontal and it's momentum is vertical.
4. Now, Place the broomstick on a gold block (with friction) and put the block on a frictionless floor. The broom will fall over, pivoting as it falls, the end of the stick pushing the block horizontally. The broom will end its fall vertically, having imparted its horizontal momentum into the block. The vertical momentum will be dissipated in a noisy clatter while the block continues to move horizontally.

[gmalivuk]

I have skimmed, but not read all, of the responses and have a suggestion that relies on two ideas:
1. There is friction between you and the block.
2. There is potential energy in the system (you are upright and can fall down) that can be converted into horizontal momentum using that friction.
You do that by standing on the block, then leaning over until you fall off.

That doesn't convert into overall horizontal momentum, it just gives you some momentum relative to the block, which has equal and opposite momentum.

[Freddino18]

These are the "gimmicky" solutions, such as stretching the rope many times its original length, beating the gold into thread, or building a rope out of hair. By the dimensions given in the problem, these are highly implausible, so I think it is basically indisputable that the puzzle has no plausible solutions.

I admit that part of my response was gimmicky, but that was the part where I was attempting to shorten the time it would take to under a century. Eventually, your hair would grow long enough to escape the circle without you having to do anything, but it is intended to be a last-ditch effort.

Well, technically your hair does stop growing after a while and sometime later fall out. If your magical immortality and preservation from injury also holds your hair in your skull, then it will simply be impossible to remove, but it should still attain a maximum length. Otherwise, you can just keep collecting hair and braiding it together into rope I suppose. But by that logic, all the other gimmicky solutions work too. If I am immortal and my hand cannot be injured, there is no reason I couldn't eventually beat a block of gold into thread.

By the rules of the original post, the hair cannot fall out, as it would violate the mass ejection rule. Also, hair doesn't reach a maximum length due to a stoppage of growth (at first),^[1] it stops getting longer because of breakage, which also violates the ejection rule. Therefore, it is possible to grow your hair out to these outrageous lengths.

That article is wrong on some points. Hair does indeed stop growing after a genetically predetermined period of time when it enters the catagen phase, in which the hair follicle disintegrates and the strand is cut off and pushed away from the blood supply, forming a club hair. This is followed by the telogen phase, when the follicle remains dormant in the epidermis, typically for months. When the follicle does begin to grow again, it forms a new hair, pushing the club hair out. There is no mechanism that could allow a club hair strand to begin growth again, since it is no longer attached to the follicle.

It's sort of like how if the person in the problem were an infant whose deciduous teeth had just started to come in, the specification that teeth can't fall out wouldn't mean that they would just grow forever to indefinite length. They would still have the exact same length they always would, but they would just never be pushed out by the permanent teeth below.

At least, that's how I envision this working. Obviously it's biologically impossible, so I guess you could take it to mean whatever you want.

I am not implying that the club hair grows again, I am stating that one of two things happens: The new hair is unable to push out the old, and either shares the follicle (otter-style) or becomes ingrown (eew), or the new hair is able to push out the old. I am operating under the assumption that the latter is true, so the base of the club hair must stay attached to the tip of the new one or at least the surrounding hairs. Unfortunately, this presents a new problem: during the dormant phase, there is no growth. Taking that into account, the hair-growth method, starting from scratch, would take considerably longer (137 years on average,^[2] vs my previous estimate of 116). Also, lengths of heads of hair can be significantly longer than the maximum length of an individual hair, due to braiding^[3]. As long as you were very meticulous with your braiding, your hairs could still "fall out" without becoming detached from your body.

Edit: adjusted the wording to clarify. Multiple times

[Bloopy]

I liked this post:

@jasondrake: That approach is so much easier:

Spoiler:

Go to one side of the block. You are probably warmer than the block. You emit radiation roughly isotropically, but the block will absorb some part and emit it isotropically again. In total, you get a bit of net thrust, and you move (block first). Acceleration is (order of magnitude) 10^-10 m/s², so after about two weeks you reach the border.
What you suggest would reduce the effect by heating both sides.

If you take advantage of the friction between yourself and the block that bjazz mentioned, you could rub one side of the block to heat it up, which would arguably then meet the puzzle's requirement of "using only forces exerted by your limbs".

[BlackSails]

The rope is massless, but it isnt unstretchable. Use parametric pumping to set yourself and the block in harmonic motion and eventually the forces involved will stretch the rope to the point that you can grab onto the edge of the high friction surface

[Bloopy]

The rope is massless, but it isnt unstretchable.

Well, the puzzle doesn't mention that it's unstretchable. It also doesn't mention that the rope isn't some sort of wormhole or portal you can just reach into and draw some momentum from.

[BlackSails]

The rope is massless, but it isnt unstretchable.

Well, the puzzle doesn't mention that it's unstretchable. It also doesn't mention that the rope isn't some sort of wormhole or portal you can just reach into and draw some momentum from.

Im not drawing any momentum from the rope. The momentum of the system is 0, I am not changing that. The energy is being extracted from food.

Kick yourself away from the block. You and the block will both move, and then recoil back to each other. When you are at v=0, kick it again. You and the block will move, this time a little bit faster, and the excursion from the center will be a little more.

Repeat this process until the rope is stretching to the edge of the circle.

[Thesh]

The rope is unbreakable, the person tied to it is not.

[SDK]

The rope is unbreakable, the person tied to it is not.

And as you break in half, someone somewhere cries, "you are not allowed to eject anything from your body!"

[Bloopy]

Im not drawing any momentum from the rope. The momentum of the system is 0, I am not changing that. The energy is being extracted from food.

Kick yourself away from the block. You and the block will both move, and then recoil back to each other. When you are at v=0, kick it again. You and the block will move, this time a little bit faster, and the excursion from the center will be a little more.

Repeat this process until the rope is stretching to the edge of the circle.

You missed my point. Your rope that stretches to three times its own length or more is a fantastical invention exploiting a loophole in the puzzle. mward already suggested stretching the rope on page 2, but thinks it doesn't recoil. You can't both be right.

[Thesh]

mward already suggested stretching the rope on page 2, but thinks it doesn't recoil. You can't both be right.

I think in both cases I agree with SDK that it inadvertently violates the no bodily ejections rule.

[morriswalters]

Isn't this just a 2 body problem dressed up to look special? The rope is gravity and the rotation happens in the plane?

[measure]

Isn't this just a 2 body problem dressed up to look special? The rope is gravity and the rotation happens in the plane?

Similar. Except here the tension in the rope doesn't have a nice conservative function of distance like gravity does since the human can add energy to the system.