Some Reality

Imagine, dangling about a 150 feet in the air. A ferocious fire, heating the tarmac beneath your bare feet. Well what if I told you your only way of escape was walking on a steel cable that was 1 inch thick. In Ark Angel Alex Rider used the laws of physics to sustain a sense of balance. If his upper body was not directly above the wire he would fall, so he grabbed a pipe and added some weights to each end giving him a lower center of gravity and decreasing his chance to fall. Well thats a lot of pressure on you and tests if you payed attention in your physics class. I believed it was interesting to share this sense of reality in a book filled with fiction. Just to let you know, as he was mid way through his crossing onto another building, there is an explosion that lets him no that he only has seconds to escape.

Now the science behind all of this is maintaing you center of gravity directly above the wire. Having a lower center of gravity, by means of physics, allows an object to remain more stable because most of the object's mass is at a lower height. Now in the situation above, though there are stuff such as a howling fire behind you and other distractions, the situation is almost identical to tight rope walking in the circus (This relation was stated by the author in the book, and the site used for the background knowledge clearly explains each situation that had occurred in the book). The source also states that using a long and flexible pole, as used by the character in the book, can maintain the person's center of gravity below the thick cable or tight rope.

My source was . This is a reliable source because all of it's information had come from published books on physics.