2 ms·

The German page of the Braess Paradox has a description for this. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess-Paradoxon#Mechanisches_Analogon https://de.wikipedia.org/

• SilasX 5y ago
  Ah, okay, that helps! So basically, you have a system where two springs are in parallel, thus resulting in effective stiffness being equal to the sum of their stiffnesses (K = k1 + k2). However, the extra linkage makes them act in series, which reduces total stiffness. (1/K = 1/k1 + 1/k2, like parallel resistors). However, I'm blanking on how the analogy to traffic flow works, and on how exactly the blue and red lines are connected to make this work or how stiff they are assumed to be. (I thought they had to be infinitely stiff for this to work but the math on that doesn't work in my quick calculation.) Edit: the German says the three linkages are infinitely stiff (hart) I'm confused because that would make the parallel case infinitely stiff. Edit: Okay I had that wrong, the extra linkages are indeed infinitely stiff. In the parallel case, that doesn't make the system infinitely stiff because each one is in series with a finite stiffness spring. And in the analogy stiffer = shorter travel time, and any road system with a fixed travel time is thus infinitely stiff.