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Taipei’s 728-Ton Pendulum– In Motion

Many (if not all) high-rise buildings are designed to withstand tremendous shock by “flexing” in respond to wind and events on the ground. Newer and much larger buildings, such as those currently going up in Dubai, Beijing and Bangalore, include massive counterweights to re-stabilize afterwards. These are referred to as “tuned mass dampers” or “harmonic absorbers”, and are also used in restabilizing cars and airplanes.

One of the more beautiful of these, linked from the Long Now blog, is the 728-ton mass damper in use in Taiwan’s “Taipei 101″ building. During the recent earthquakes, someone was able to film this massive pendulum in action. Pretty amazing.

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