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What is Jacob's Ladder?
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Jacob's ladder is an old toy made of six blocks of wood,
which are connected by ribbons.
If you take only the top piece and turn it, then the pieces
under it turn alternately to the left and to the right and fall down. This
is surprising. The event repeats, if you turn the top piece upside down. |
Jacob's ladder can have different
meanings in German (maybe in English, too). It can also be
- ladder to Heaven (1.Moses 28,12f.)
- a plant
- a ladder of ropes and round wooden bars
- a composition by Arnold Schönberg
- a painting by Ernst Wilhelm Nay
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- a quilt pattern
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- a figure in a string game
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The Mechanism
of Folding
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If you put two blocks on each other, then they have two
hinges. You can open them on the left or right. How does it work? |
... ... |
Perhaps you should make a simple model with two pieces
to understand the mechanism. You take two CDs, which you connect with insulating
tape as shown in the drawing. |
... ... |
You must only stick together the last ends (in the drawing
green for good eyes). |
These two ways of folding
are made possible by ribbons, which connect the pieces. Either the two
ribbons (blue), or one ribbon (red) work as a hinge.
Making Jacob's
Ladder top
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If you would like to make Jacob's ladder, you must have
six blocks of wood. You can hear it clicking only with wood. You can use
ribbons of cloth or synthetic material. The measurements are up to you.
If you connect the pieces, you have to leave some space between the blocks
so that they can fall.
Again: Only glue the short ends. |
... ...
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A game bought in Crete/Greece has the measurements
8.0cm x 4.7cm x 1.0cm. The ribbons of cloth are 1.5cm wide. There is a
distance of 0.3cm between the blocks.
The scan on the left shows the pile of six pieces.
You see the smallest faces 4.7cm x 1.0cm. |
... ...
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There is another version of Jacob's ladder with eight
pieces.
Each block is formed by two halves. The glue places are
between them. |
Shapes of the
six blocks top
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Shapes made of the six blocks are interesting to small
children. With imagination you can recognize a snake, a giraffe, a horse,
and a house. There are more shapes. |
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If you form a cap with Jacob's ladder and move the vertical
blocks up and down, you get waving ears
(Thank you Michael). |
Jacob's
Ladder on the Internet top
Deutsch
Wikipedia
Jakobsleiter
(Spielzeug)
English
Wikipedia
Jacob's
ladder (toy)
Youtube
DIY
Jakobs Leiter / Jacob´s Ladder selber bauen
References
Rüdiger Thiele/Konrad Haase: Der verzauberte Raum,
Urania Verlag, Leipzig, Jena, Berlin 1991 (Seite 16/17)
Rüdiger Thiele/Konrad Haase: Teufelsspiele, Urania
Verlag, Leipzig, Jena, Berlin 1991 (Seite 14)
English / German
During the first ten years I translated my German-language
web pages as best I could.
Back then, English was the language of the Internet even
more so than it is today.
If anything is unclear, please visit my German-language
website and use a translation program.
This
page is also available in German.
URL of
my Homepage:
https://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/
©
1999 Jürgen Köller
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