The Pendulum Rocket Fallacy

The Pendulum Rocket Fallacy is one of the oldest blunders in rocket science. It also appears to make a lot of sense - or at least that's what I thought before I built my own 'Pendulum Rocket' and drove into to the middle of nowhere to test it for myself! This is my entry for the #VeritasiumContest which is why it's only 60 seconds long (and basically a horizontal #shorts)! If you want to help me out the best thing you can do is to watch the video (again) and then send it to a friend. This is because the competition is only considering the top 100 most-viewed entries. If you're from the Veritasium team (or just want to say hi) my email is [email protected] Thanks!!! - James FAQ: Q: Where did you film? A: The 'to-camera' shots were all filmed a outside the town of Meekatharra in Western Australia. We decided to film here to get the full Aussie outback experience and because the conditions were too stormy in Perth. The launches were also meant to take place in Meekatharra, but we had so many technical difficulties that we had to do a re-shoot the weekend after at Lake Austin near Mount Magnet (note that 'Lake' in the context of Australia doesn't actually imply there is ever any water in it). Over the two trips we drove 2910 km! Fortunately Gus was there to help co-pilot and Matthew brought some excellent music. Q: Is it safe? A: Yes! But please don't try this at home. Gus, Tom, and myself are all members of the UWA Aerospace rocketry team where we've spent years working on high-powered rockets. Some key takeaways from the eight-page safety document we wrote are... - Launches took place many kilometres away from population centres, airfields and major roads. - The rockets were made of low-density cardboard and contained redundant parachutes. - All rockets were designed to fly below the CASA-mandated 400ft limit. Q: Do you have any more rocket videos? A: Yes! We used the same launch equipment to answer the age-old question of "which rocket emoji would win in a race?" over at https://youtu.be/9Pn0rHTpwvo and you can watch a launch compilation for this video at https://www.patreon.com/atomicfrontier CREDITS: Written, hosted, and edited by James Dingley Filming and script review by Gus O'Neill Secondary filming by Matthew Blacker Original score by Julian Dingley 3D printing by Tom Wilkinson (https://www.facebook.com/Namarkon3DPrinting) and Tim Hassett (https://m.facebook.com/uwamakers/) With thanks to Jamir Izan, Matthew Blacker, Harry Walters, and UWA Aerospace (https://uwaaero.space/) for their assistance in rocket design, construction, and fact-checking. MEDIA SOURCES: Goddard photographs from NASA (in the public domain) colourised using hotpot.ai and deepai.org WITH THANKS TO OUR TOP PATREONS: Andre van Soest, Brandon McDowall, Christoph Kutza, Erica, Eoin Monaghan, Gustav Utterheim, Jake Kirsch, James Mifsud, Jeff Straathof, Johan Thorell, Michiel Dral, Matt Emch, Rico Hengstman, Simon Priisholm, Sören Klein, Terin Stock, Tim Katzgrau