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Weird science and weird scientists throughout history

Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid

My newest book, Electrified Sheep, which is packed full of mad scientists, is currently available in the UK. The US edition is coming out in 2012. My previous book, Elephants on Acid, is also still available everywhere. Click on either image for more info.





Categories

Limits of Endurance
Topics from the archives of the Mad Science Museum related to research into the ability of biological organisms to endure extreme environments and conditions. Arranged in descending chronological order.

Human Deceleration (1947-1954)

Dr. Stapp decelerating
After World War II, the US Air Force needed to know if pilots could eject from supersonic jets without facing certain death because of the shock of rapidly decelerating from the speed of sound to a near standstill. The transition exposed pilots to forces of over 40 or 50 Gs. (One G equals the force of gravity at the surface of the earth; 40 Gs is like a 7000-pound elephant falling on top of you.) Many doctors believed that 18 Gs was the most a human body could endure, but no one knew for sure. Flight surgeon John Paul Stapp volunteered to serve as the guinea pig in a series of physically brutal experiments to find out.

At Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Stapp designed a rocket-powered sled that blasted down a 3500-foot track at speeds up to 750 mph before slamming into a pool of water that brought it to an abrupt halt. It went from 750 mph to zero in one second. Strong restraints made sure that the passenger didn’t continue their forward trajectory, though the restraints didn’t always work. One test dummy came free of the harness and was catapulted 700 feet through the air.

For his inaugural rocket sled ride, in 1947, Stapp went at a gentle 90 mph. The next day he advanced to 200 mph. And subsequently he kept signing up for more rides, upping his speed, probing the limits of human endurance. Over a period of seven years he rode the sled twenty-nine times.
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Dr. Minovici’s Hanging Experiments (1905)
During the first decade of the twentieth century, while employed as a professor of forensic science at the State School of Science in Bucharest, Nicolae Minovici undertook a comprehensive study of death by hanging. Inspired by his research, he decided to find out, first-hand, what it would feel like to die in this way.
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All text Copyright © 2011 by Alex Boese, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.