#AAPTSM18: Using physics to win a tug-of-war

I will post as many gems as I can from the American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting held in Washington, DC July 28-August 1, 2018. On Twitter, that's #AAPTSM18. The items may be new or classic; simple or complex. Here's one such gem.

At the "30 Demos in 60 Minutes" session, Colorado State's Brian Jones—director of The Little Shop of Physics and author of College Physics by Knight, Jones, and Field—showed us his secret to winning a tug-of-war.

Brian Jones Tug-of-War


I love it: so simple!. Two concerns:

Those once-ubiquitous single-use plastic bags may be an endangered species as voters outlaw them out of concern for the growing plastic islands and gyres in the oceans. It should work equally well with the thicker multiple-use bags that are now coming online.

I wonder if this will work as well on tile as it does on carpet. It clearly works like a charm on carpet. I guess I'll find out soon enough how well it works on tile.