escalator math

[alierak]

I'm developing a habit of walking up the up escalators at the Porter Square T stop. Not because I'm ever really in a hurry there, I guess, but because it pleases me to be able to do so without slowing down or getting seriously out of breath

Comments

[lite]

*blink... blink... blink*

OK, but what about the very real possibility that one or more of your escalators, due to age, don't actually move at constant speed v_e, but actually a variable speed, v(t), where C_a v_e <= v(t) <= (1-C_b) v_e, where C_a and C_b are small constants (perhaps close to 0.05 or 0.1).

[alierak]

Well, I'm very sure they don't have a constant rate of vertical rise, hence "ignoring the shallow steps at top and bottom". This is already supposed to be an approximation.

But I sense you might be poking fun at me anyway as your inequality makes insufficient sense. It would mean something like 0.5 v_e <= v(t) <= 0.95 v_e, thus v(t) is always less than how fast I think the escalator should be going. Porter Square has the longest escalators in Boston, and typically one of them is down for maintenance every other day. So maybe that's not so inaccurate :)

[lite]

It is probable that I am mocking you gently.
I mock all my friends. I'm just a big dork like that :)

[kareila]

I can walk up the long escalator without straining myself, but if I walk up the second escalator to ground level as well, I start to get winded.

One day recently, all the long escalators were working and I walked all the way up, but the second level up escalator was broken and I had to walk the stairs. That was painful.