I’ve practiced martial arts of various styles for 20 years, and in all that time I’ve heard a number of very strange & woo-filled explanations for why people can accomplish the physical feats they can. One such example is breaking wooden boards with the bare hands & feet – often people provide an explanation by referencing so-called “chi, ki, or qigong energy”. The whole concept of chi is more of a philosophical concept than anything else, and it is little more than a “dragon-in-the-garage” (an untestable notion that cannot be verified through scientific means).
Well, I’m here to tell you that such physical feats as board breaking can be performed & explained simply by referencing the known laws of physics – no woo required. Take a look at the video of me performing such a break with five pine boards at once…
How do I accomplish this feat? Here’s how: I hit the boards really hard – the question is how do I generate such a large force of impact? Read on…
When I was at The Amazing Meeting 7 in Las Vegas recently, I participated in the first TAM Talent Show. My skit focused upon a favorite physics demonstration and gave me an excellent opportunity to teach some skepticism: the Bed of Nails. Having performed this demonstration about 40-50 times throughout my teaching career, I decided it was time to take things to the big stage 🙂
The demonstration is simple, and dangerous – IT SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED WITHOUT PROPER SUPERVISION!!! In it, I lay down upon a bed of nails, have a second bed of nails placed atop my stomach & chest, have a concrete cinder block placed atop that, and – last but not least – have an assistant break the block with a 10-lb sledgehammer! Here’s some slow motion footage of the demo at the TAM Talent Show…
Moments later, I got up off the bed of nails with no damage at all – pretty impressive stuff! Here’s a photo of my chest seconds after the demo…
The bed of nails has a history of woo – there are some in the martial arts community who claim that their chi or “life force” protects them from injury. Others, such as gurus in India, claim that the only reason they are uninjured is because of the specific type of meditation they perform. But a simple application of Occam’s Razor is all that is necessary to explain what’s going on here – and it doesn’t have anything to do with chi, mysticism, or anything supernatural.
The Skeptical Teacher 