How can play ping-pong without a net, table, opponent, wall… ?
What’s the fool going on about now? It has something to do with table tennis, obviously, but… what? Read on, it’s worth it.
Ah, now this is more like it. A classic How2, a ping-pong ball being held up in the air stream from a hairdryer. Great fun.
This, you’ll notice immediately, is not a hairdryer. It’s called an ‘air knife.’
It blasts a thin sheet of air straight upwards. It’s usually used in factories, pointing downwards to blow-dry things as they come past on a conveyor belt.
Here, Gareth’s using it to support a bunch of balls, which seem quite happy being held up in the flowing air.
Interestingly, the balls interact – the airflow around them turns turbulent, and they make each other shuffle around. So they randomly swap places – it’s like a group of self-juggling balls!
So, back to the How: remove all the balls except one, and…
Single-player table-tennis! The ball returns to the centre of the air flow, so Gareth can bat it up and down the air knife!
So that’s how you can play table tennis without… oh, Gareth! Too hard! Durr!
Can we have our ball back, please?