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Comment by InclinedPlane | Hacker News Reader

The apparatus is not connected at the red line in this image. The part to the left (the wheel) is on the ground and farther away, the part to the right (the start of the track) is in the air and closer. They just happen to line up due to forced perspective.

The water just seeps down into a hidden reservoir in the left part, and is pumped up at the appropriate time from another reservoir in the right part.

Edit: see below, it looks like the discontinuity is at a different point.

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http://imgur.com/z2FU8

It looks like, given the reflection from the water, that section of the track can't be more than an inch above the floor. If thats true then wouldn't the break have to be somewhere after that point?

If I'm missing some huge detail can someone explain it to me?

It looks to me like the break is at the first bend - on the HD version, the water coming in doesn't appear to turn a corner there at all, and then on the other side of the tower support it's flowing straight outwards.

I thought that too but there is a very convincing shadow on either side of that pillar.

http://imgur.com/FIVwu

Excellent. Notice that the same shadow is missing on the last part of the track, at least in the part to the left of the vertical pillar.

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/Kqgtr.jpg

I think you might be right. The high-def version makes it easier to see where shadows fall. It looks like it's the back section that's separate from the rest. If you watch the high-def closely it looks very much like the first 3 segments of the track are behind the last segment (notice how his shadow passes over the last segment THEN the first 3 segments):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v2xnl6LwJE#t=33s

http://imgur.com/c1Plc

Ya, if you watch it carefully you can see it burp a few times when the water moves past that post.

EDIT: I made a diff in GIMP of the shadow. It looks like both the top and bottom left facing ledges are connected. Notice the hard edges between the adjacent pillars.

http://imgur.com/zd25x

That may be the legs that are holding the whole thing off of the floor.

The legs would have to be mounted in such a way that they were hidden by the structure. So they'd have to be at an angle and those in the reflection appear to be vertical.

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