String Theory - Futility Closet

String Theory - Futility Closet

In the classic Indian rope trick, a rope rises into the sky, its end lost to view. A boy disappears up the rope, and when he fails to return the angry magician climbs up after him. Body parts fall to the ground, the magician descends and places the parts in a basket, and the boy reappears uninjured. This is all thought to be a legend, but in 1979 mathematician J.L.G. Pinhey of The Perse Boys’ School worked out that levitating a rope is possible,…