How don’t and do pedestrians collide? Ig Nobel Prize winner Alessandro Corbetta, a physicist based at Eindhoven University of Technology, explains, in this short video. The 2021 Ig Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not […]
Tag: crowd
Umbrella Progress on a Crowded Sidewalk (podcast #96)
What happens when lots of people with umbrellas walk in opposite directions on a crowded sidewalk? A research study explores that very question, and we explore that study, in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams discusses a published lotsa-people-walking-with-umbrellas study. Melissa Franklin, a Harvard physics professor who designed parts of the Large […]
Modernizing the Roman Thumbs-up-or-down Decision
This patent describes (among other things) an automated way to perform the Roman Emperor’s decision (indicated in the old days — reputedly — by a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down signal, displayed by the emperor) as to whether a gladiator should live or die: “Monitoring of crowd response to performances,” US patent #6885304, issued Apr 26, […]
How do pedestrians avoid collisions?
As you walk city streets, frustrated at why those other pedestrians behave so frustratingly, be aware that scientists are trying to improve the situation, but are making progress only in slow steps. Dr Taku Fujiyama [pictured here, receiving an award], one of the modern masters in this endeavour, is a lecturer at University College London’s Secret […]