Am I Really Twisting Solid Metal In My Mind?

Shôn Ellerton, February 21, 2024
The strange feeling that one could be bending something solid just by thinking about it.

Remember that guy, Uri Geller? The magician and illusionist who could bend spoons by gently squeezing them or massaging them? Of course, it’s all an illusion, but it looks quite convincing.

Well, did you know that you can do the exactly the same? Oh, ok. Maybe not physically, but mentally.

Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s try something physically impossible for the average person. Twisting a ring that fits on a finger. It has to be a smooth, round and plain ring like a wedding ring. No adornments, stones, faces, or other features. Just a plain round ring. Preferably one that feels strong and weighty.

OK. Take it off your finger and, without looking at it, pinch each side of the ring, and gently try to twist it. You know, of course, that you cannot in reality, but just close your eyes or twist the ring under the table away from eyesight.

Now focus on the feel of the metal. The heat coming from your skin into the cold metal of the ring. Keep twisting gently but very slowly. Feel the sensation of the opposing edges of the ring when you’re twisting.

At this point, in your mind, you may experience an odd sensation that the ring is slightly moving as you’re twisting it. You may be even able to picture the twisting of the ring, as if it will eventually twist up into a figure-of-eight shape. You may even feel the metal become soft and flexible as if the energy you’re exerting into the twisting of the ring is making it more malleable.

Try something else.

Squeeze the ring very slowly with your thumb and index finger. Very slow but firmly, and at the same time, focus on the heat of your finger and the malleability of the metal. Do you feel the ring slightly compressing into an oval shape? Do you have that feeling that your fingers are getting closer together while squeezing it?

But don’t try to twist or squeeze the ring too hard because the illusion of the sensation of bending it or twisting it disappears. Your fingers will just hurt and the ring is, well, as solid as it was before. You know you can’t twist it.

It’s a very strange sensation and I experience it all the time. Not just twisting or squeezing rings, but bending a rigid object, like a strong metal spoon. I have, many times, fooled friends, family, and waiters in restaurants, much to their horror, by bending spoons using a bit of trickery in my hands by sort of slipping the shaft of the spoon in my hand while pressing on the table making it look like it’s really bending. Only to then release the spoon unharmed, much to the relief of the waiter, or mangled and bent if I felt particularly mischievous and really did bend the spoon.

This phenomenon of having the feeling of slowly moving something even if it’s impossible to do so in reality is really strange. There are other times I experience it. For example, doing something like pushing against a wall or a column supporting a building. It can’t be moving if one takes the mathematics of physics seriously enough, but saying that, the energy has to go somewhere. The column, being much stiffer than you are, will absorb the lion’s share of the energy you put in to it. That energy is being absorbed by the concrete as it compresses, which, in turn, creates stress into the underlying steel reinforcement, although, in the case of a human pushing the column, it is negligible. But, as negligible as the force is, there is some force being applied.

Now how does that work when the element of time is involved?

Taking a more realistic scenario, say that an 80 kilogram adult leans against a four-by-four post supporting a veranda. Chances are, there will be no discernible movement. At least, hopefully.

But say, ignoring the effects of erosion and deterioration of materials, say that the same amount of weight was applied on that particular post for ten thousand years. I’d say there would be some visible movement, if not, even collapse, of the structure.

When I studied civil and structural engineering, structures are designed to last a finite amount of time or designed to withstand a cataclysmic event such as a hundred-year-storm in the case of offshore platforms to ground movements around fault lines for retaining walls and other geotechnical structures. Structures not relying on gravity alone are not designed to last thousands, if not, even hundreds of years. It’s just too complicated to calculate and too expensive to build. Undersea tunnels, for example, constantly require monitoring and remedial works to maintain them, as to most other structures.

The long passage of time with minimal force is incredibly powerful. Every structure wants to reduce itself to its basal elements over time. The great pyramids of Egypt will disappear as erosion of the stone turns to dust which gets blown by the wind to the surrounding desert. Everything wants to flatten itself due to gravity. The two major sources of energy that transforms things or keeps things growing is that from within the Earth and the Sun. Orogeny, or mountain building, is formed from tectonic movements and volcanic activity. Trees, taking energy from the Sun, grows roots through the toughest of rocks. The slightest crack in a rock is enough for one strand of root to thicken over hundreds of years to displace the rock enough for it to crack.

I don’t know how many others have this sensation of feeling that something is bending at will as in the examples I cited above. Nor do I know how many others think about, in detail, what the interactions are between the force due to the pressure applied by one’s fingers and the object. If I squeezed a ring or try to bend a chunky rod of metal for a million years, am I changing the structure of the object, however slight, the pressure is? Perhaps the more likely situation is that the structure of the fingers or the object applying the pressure will change in time. Either way, something could be happening with respect to structural change in that exchange of forces. Most of the energy applying the force will, I suppose, be converted to heat, but absolutely one-hundred percent of it? In our universe, nothing is really absolute, and I dare say, that an iota of the percentage of that force is being used to change the structure in some way or another.

Funny how such thoughts can be formed while sitting out a rather boring and extended business meeting.