5 ms·
Conveyor belts are slow. They realized long ago that you can't accelerate a standing human too fast and that stepping on to a conveyor belt takes you to max spe
by flukus 9y ago
Conveyor belts are slow. They realized long ago that you can't accelerate a standing human too fast and that stepping on to a conveyor belt takes you to max speed nearly instantly. Any faster and people need a running start to jump on.
- yorwba 9y agoYou could have multiple conveyor belts in parallel, running at different speeds, so that the difference between them is not too much.
- sls 9y agoThis is an old science-fiction idea, Robert Heinlein's _The Roads Must Roll_ was published in 1940. When I looked this up to get a date for the citation, I found that H. G. Wells used the idea in 1910 as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Slidewalk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_walkway#Slidewalk
- lostapathy 9y agoSolved problem. There are actually moving sidewalks that accelerate you as they go, see https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/accel-moving-sidewalk-thyssenkrupp-dream-come-true.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/accel-moving-sidewal... Somewhere I saw a prototype of a multi-belt system as well. You get on a shorter one at normal speed, and you can either transition to one moving twice as fast as the first, or you can step off completely. The speed difference from stationary to slow is the same as from slow to fast - you just accelerate by shifting belts.
- flukus 9y agoThe link shows the "fast" speed as being 2m/s, which is still just a brisk walk. You'd be better off with bicycles or segways.
- dsr_ 9y agoElevators have better latency, but conveyor belts have much better bandwidth.