It can look dumb, but I always had this question as a kid, what physical principles would prevent this?
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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The motion of the stick will actually only propagate to the other end at the speed of sound in the material the stick is made of.
So when you pull on the stick and it doesnt immediately get pulled back on the other side, you are, at that instant, creating more stick?
You're not creating more stick, but you're making the stick longer. The pressure wave in the stick will travel at the speed of sound in the stick which will be faster than sound in air, but orders of magnitude slower than light.
Everything has some elasticity. Rigidity is an illusion . Things that feel rigid to us are rigid in human terms only.
I get it. Elasticity isn't something you think about in the every day so it all seems rigid.
It would stretch like a rubber band stretches just a lot less. Wood, metal, whatever is slightly flexible. The stick would either get slightly thinner or slightly less dense as you pulled it. Also, you won't be able to pull it much because there's so much stick.