I wish I had a video of this demonstration, it really hammered in the point (for me) that this is a real phenomenon and not just mathematical trickery or electrical weirdness.
I wish I had a video of this demonstration, it really hammered in the point (for me) that this is a real phenomenon and not just mathematical trickery or electrical weirdness.
I presume in the demonstration you're describing the central rope was not partially elasticated as the other two? (as demonstrated in the two videos)
Does Braess' paradox apply if the central rope is elasticated? Does it apply for a parallel route also or just for a route that joins to existing series routes?
I think if it's just a joining link then the effect could be modelled in signal theory as the result of partial feedback. Still no idea how the experiment works though :-)
In this setup, cutting the link essentially converts the two springs from being in series to parallel: http://ibin.co/2JEsCKEYRisb
If the central string was elastic, this would cause the weight to initially hang lower, but have no effect on the position reached after it is cut (assuming that it does not stretch so much that the other strings stop being slack). The effect would thus appear larger.