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Maurits Cornelis Escher, known as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch artist who created mathematical art pieces. Some of his greater known works of art are based on impossible situations. One of his popular impossible creations was theWaterfall which he first printed in October 1961. It consists of water following along an elevated aqueduct that takes ninety degree turns uphill before water falls down to the beginning of the aqueduct into a waterwheel. The cycle of water flowing repeats itself forever in the same pattern. It is not only impossible in how the water seems to travel up instead of down, and somehow ends where it begins, but it also has pillars that overlap in places that would not be structurally accurate.
While at first glance it appears the man in the video, Eduard Kopp, was able to create this amazing impossible design, in actuality he is a student who created this video from a composition of other videos to make it look like the waterfall is possible. Inanother video on his channel, he walks around the structure and shows that the pieces do not actually connect in the way you would think and that it would be impossible to pour water in the bottom and have it flow all the way up to the top. Some were still curious about how he was able to film this impossible act and created their own videos to explain it further.
A 3D rendering by LookingMercury3D, shows how he would have filmed water flowing through different parts of the structure and then added them together when he was done. To create this video, he most likely had to pour water into each of the three sections one at a time and then combine the footage from each section. He then manipulated the video to make it look like the water was flowing smoothly.
While it is disappointing that he was not able to make the impossible possible, it is still fascinating to see how seamlessly he was able to meld all the videos together. Check out the video and see what you think for yourself.
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