Climactic cliffhanger from The Italian Job solved with science
Spoiler Alert: If you want to be surprised by the ending of The Italian Job, stop reading now.
We had a theory that humanity was officially bored when the carpet rake was invented. Once people didn't have to subdue woolly mammoths for dinner, they could focus on how to subdue the shag. That theory has been bolstered by news that the cliffhanger ending of The Italian Job has been attacked – and solved – by a host of amateur minds responding to a contest held by the Royal Society of Chemists (RSC).
The end of The Italian Job sees the gang in the front of a bus teetering over a cliff, looking at all the gold at the back end of the bus and knowing they can't get to it without plunging to gold-plated deaths. The question posed by the RSC was simple: How could the gang get the gold out of the bus and remain alive to spend it? Ironically, the answer was all about physics, not chemistry.
The winning entry, submitted by John Godwin, describes the following sequence: Break the windows at the back to reduce weight; break two windows at the front, hold one gang member upside-down out of the window to deflate the front tires and stabilize the vehicle; drain the rear fuel tank through an access panel at the bottom of the bus; gang members leave one by one from the front, collecting stones to replace their weight; keep adding stones until someone can safely go to the rear to retrieve the gold.
And for that, Godwin won a trip to Turin. If you happen to be bored, you can always read Godwin's 6-page, scientifically thorough treatment, or check out the some of the other 2,000 entries and diagrams at the RSC site. So now that we've got that taken care of, what's next... what really happened to Thelma and Louise?
[Source: RSC via Yahoo!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
SteveJ 7:46PM (1/29/2009)
They should have gotten a long stick with a hook on the end, and pulled the cages of gold one by one to the front of the bus. Surely they had some sort of stick with them right?
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James 11:36AM (1/30/2009)
"Ironically, the answer was all about physics, not chemistry...."
And an...analytical brain.
Dazza 7:49PM (1/29/2009)
I always thought it was a good job that Benny Hill (playing the Professor) wasn't on the bus during the return trip!
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why not the LS2LS7? 7:56PM (1/29/2009)
This answer was mentioned by Michael Caine himself a year or so ago, the RSC latched onto it and said they wanted someone to do all the maths and show it could be done.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7756288.stm
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chconline 7:57PM (1/29/2009)
They'll need a lot of stones/rocks for proper weight distribution as well as optimal locations. Firstly, they'll need to make sure the sum of the moments is the same on either end... also find the center of gravity of where this occurs for proper calculations. As the people inside moves around the bus and the load changes in regards to the movement of gold, it will require continuous of such unless the side on the ground is significantly loaded more than the opposing end (It doesn't matter when most of the gold is moved... what matters is the beginning). Deflating tires to increase traction is a good idea, what it's quite limited in what it can do, must find the amount of friction between its contact area. Make sure there's no loose rocks too... and also to note, I hate statics and dynamics. The only reason why I know these crap is because they make you take it in first year engineering... and I am an electrical engineer. >=)
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Farris 11:13PM (1/29/2009)
I know exactly what you mean. I am an EE major at WSU, and I HATED statics and dynamics with a passion.
chconline 11:43PM (1/29/2009)
Exactly. Here it's the weeder course. Half the class fails every year, and the other gets a D.
sitruc 2:35PM (1/30/2009)
Where is here?
Concerned Citizen 8:04PM (1/29/2009)
How exactly is it ironic that it's physics and not chemistry? It's ironic, you know, like that Alanis song...
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Metar 5:58AM (1/30/2009)
I was about to comment the same. Physics is the obvious field you turn to when you have a bus to balance on a cliff... Why is that ironic?
RGS 9:01AM (1/30/2009)
The contest was held by the Royal Society of Chemists (RSC).
Mobius_1 8:26PM (1/29/2009)
There is apparently a criteria of 30 minutes max taken to take the gold...
I wonder how long it takes to work out all this physics!
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Itsuru 8:38PM (1/29/2009)
Maybe he can explain to me how it was possible for The Flintstones to communicate with animals...
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Bert 9:24PM (1/29/2009)
OK, here you go.... Start at the shot in the post...
take a vertical blind down, tear it apart. take a couple of the lats (sp?), put a bit of a hook in them. With whatever is on hand it should be trivial to put hooks in to the end of them. I figure there is 4-5-6 feet of string available.
Take the sting from the vertical blinds, hook it to one of the bent-lats. You should be able to use the second bent-blind to help thread the sting through one of the grate/cages holding the gold. This is a leader line. Choose the cage which is closest and and highest, the one with the least (probable) resistance.
If no one is wearing leather belts, take a suit and tear it in to strips. If working with a torn suit, braid sections to increase strength. Use the leader line to feed the leather belt or braid through the cage. Once fed through, PULL! Repeat.
There are 4-6 cages which are easily pulled by this method. Each cage must be 100 pounds, if not more! FYI, a gold bar (as seen at Fort Knox, or in Goldfinger weigh 20 pounds EACH. But they must be no more than 200-300 pounds since (IIRC) 2 people moved them from the armoured car to the Minis. Say you move 4 X 100 pounds back to front you should easily be able to go in and remove the remaining cages to the front of the RV. Other passengers can stand on the cages, and stay in the RV, to move the CoG 'forward'. Repeat.
Now all you need to pull the RV off the cliff face.... that is another story!
.
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another_one 3:28PM (1/30/2009)
Very creative. And more realistic then the chem theory.
Material Science, fluids and thermo (not to mention the whole math department where the weeders at my school (UAH - University of Alabama Hunstville).
Kitko 9:32PM (1/29/2009)
That guy's solution will become Italian Job 2
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hyundaifans.com 11:26PM (1/29/2009)
I loved the Michael Caine version. Still one of my favorite movies.
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schmiti 2:53AM (1/30/2009)
So you EE's must not have done well in statics particularily. If you did well, or paid attention you'd know that he messed up his unit conversion. I'm just kidding. It's nice to see some other real engineers here.
He lists 1N as a unit of torque instead of force. It should be Nm. And his 9.8 is supposed to be m/(s^2) instead of m/s. Call me a nerd, but whatever. I'm an ME (mechanical engineer) and seeing this stuff just irritates me. Very thoughtful though
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Austin 7:15AM (1/30/2009)
gold doesn't lose any value when dropped, right? so let the bus go and get the gold from the wreckage.
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Jorge 2:00PM (1/30/2009)
Totally agree with you Austin, Im an engineer and one of the things that isnt common in engineering is common sense. Let the bus go of the cliff and recover the gold. End of story.