3190: Tensegrity

Tensegrity

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Title text: Some people argue that the tension and compression in the human skeleton is technically tensegrity, but it's missing the defining characteristic: making people say 'wtf, how is that thing floating?' when they see it.

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Explanation

This is one of 65 incomplete explanations: This page was created recently. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Tensegrity structures are structures that are suspended using a combination of rigid and compressional components, usually a series of rods and strings that give the illusion of a floating object held up by the strings

Transcript

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Discussion

here in the first 2 minutes and before before the explanation Qwertyuiopfromdefly (talk) 03:52, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

congrats, i was just 3 seconds away (also don't know correctly how to reply to a comment) King Pando (talk) 04:00, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Put a colon at the beginning of your remark to indent it. 76.187.17.7 04:56, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Like what I've done for you. And to reply to one with one colon, put two colons, etc. 82.13.184.33 14:39, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

In short, start your line(s) with one more colon than the line(s) you're replying to.

(In long, there are reasons to stay at "the same colon level", e.g. because you're replying to the thing that at least one other person has already been replying to (although you'd need to double-linefeed if you're claiming the 'zero level' with no colons before at all). And there are also obscure reasons for adding more than one (more) colon, to try to be less confusing than otherwise, though it doesn't always work ... ;) ) 92.23.2.208 17:29, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm wondering if there is a connection to Ruth Asawa, who studied under Buckminster Fuller. Some of Asawa's works were described as "earrings for a giraffe."[1] 76.187.17.7 04:59, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Those legs looks like something AI would come up with. --Coconut Galaxy (talk) 08:29, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Some people are AI obsessed.

Tell me about your mother. 92.23.2.208 17:29, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Eliza?Lord Pishky (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

Giraffe necks are supported by an elastic nuchal ligament attached to the vertebrae[2]. Thus, a giraffe doesn't need to use muscle to keep its head and neck up; to _lower_ their heads they need to stretch the ligament with muscle. A structure whose weight is supported by an elastic band attached to a fixed bone seems to fit the real definition of tensegrity, but I'm not sure if that's part of the joke here or Randall was not aware of real giraffe anatomy. 104.185.183.165 11:37, 6 January 2026 (UTC)ben

The joke here is about the legs, not the neck. -- Barmar (talk) 15:38, 6 January 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I don't know (I'm also not a bio guy) if that would count in the same way, since the weight is also being passed through the spine, which I assume is compressive rather than tensional as in the ligament. Still would be good to include probably, since that is pretty cool. Might fit in Trivia, idk R128 (talk) 16:25, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

"This page was created by a string. " ...Well, you're not wrong. --Utdtutyabthsc (talk) 03:13, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out whether the giraffe as drawn would actually stand. It kinda looks to me like it wouldn't but I could be wrong. 193.42.0.156 16:16, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

The lower'knee' part of the giraffe's 'thighs' is hanging from the upper 'knee' part of the giraffe's 'shins'.

(I'm using scare-quotes, there, because digitiform limb use might have an ankle where a plantiform limb has a knee, a knee up near where the plantiform has its hip and the hip sort of gets more lost in the torso - I suspect giraffes follow that plan more than legs as we tend to use them, but I'm not sure without checking..!)

So long as the 'shins' stay upright, and there's no other overbalancing, everything else should sit on the slung-lower 'thigh's dangling from the four knee-to-knee tensioned elements. The rest of the 'tension tendons' must therefore do two things:

1. Ensure the 'shins' stay upright (or at whatever angle they should be to take successive strides, like a human shin swings during walking/running) so that they don't topple over and bring the giraffe above to its (four, if not eight) 'knees' - this requires lateral tensions that keep (or controllably vary) the shin-knee above the shin-foot, and the shin-knee consistently in the range of knee-knee stretched arc above the current position of the thigh-knee.
2. Prevent the oscillation of the thigh-knee-on-up body (with a CoG clearly higher than the shin-knee suspension point) from toppling sideways, perhaps due to single or multiple limbs being off the ground and side-swagger enabling the body-roll (like standing on the seat of an infant-sized swingset that's far too small for you, or walking on a slackline high-wire, without anything else to hold onto or a lot of practice).

At a glance, I'd say that the stationary giraffe is probably stable enough, enough tension-wires (assuming they're not slack, at the moment - the drawing isn't too clear on that point) to keep its lower-legs prolerly 'beneath' its upper legs, except of course for the knee-ends being higher/lower than its 'lower/higher' knees.

For walking (or anything up to a gallop), I'd be intrigued to see its motion... The 'thigh' motion and the continual adjustment of the torso-to-'shin' tension-tendons probably need to be tightly coordinated due to the relative separation of same-leg-knees in a hammocky manner. I bet it could work, but there's plenty of scope for pain (overslacking, tensegrity-collapse, inter-entanglement of limbs and 'wires', etc) if not done correctly. 82.132.237.91 17:55, 7 January 2026 (UTC)
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