Tweet
PRELIMINARY NOTE: In the Orthodox church, it's not unheard of for people to remain "altar boys" for all their lives, which is why the term acolyte is sometimes substituted. In practice, we're little different from subdeacons. And before the lame jokes start, we don't have molesting priests. That would be the Catholics. So I'm still helping out back there, and odd as it sounds, I have a physics question related to my duties.
Anyway, we use ceremonial fans--big golden disks on the ends of wooden poles. The fans have been used since ancient days, when services were held in private houses with open windows. Back then, the fans were used to, uh, swat flies away from the Eucharist. Seriously. Times have changed, and with the advent of air conditioning the fans are not needed for that purpose, so they've turned a lot more ornate and are used in processions and such.
A local custom at my church (I haven't encountered it elsewhere) is to have a pair of helpers, whether subdeacons or acolytes, holding the fans out over the Gospel while it's being read. They're held at a 45 degree angle directly over the pages, and I assume there's some religious meaning to it since they must block out a lot of the deacon/priest's reading light. As you might expect, it puts a strain on your arms holding those things up at that angle, especially during long readings like the Prodigal Son. So, dimly remembering my old physics lessons on leverage, I've taken to holding the fan with one hand as close as possible to the disk part and the other as close as possible to the bottom. The idea being to turn the fan's shaft into a big lever holding up the disk, with my upper arm playing the role of the fulcrum. The longer the lever, the easier it is to lift the thing, so I imagine it's to my advantage to hold it lower down.
It does indeed make things a lot easier for the lower arm, but of course it does nothing for the upper arm. I can't tell if it's gotten any worse for that arm since I started doing this. I have only a vague idea of how levers work (my old engineering teacher's simplistic "transforms distance moved into work" synopses). So, after that long preamble: does a longer lever put extra pressure on its fulcrum point compared to a short one?
Anyway, we use ceremonial fans--big golden disks on the ends of wooden poles. The fans have been used since ancient days, when services were held in private houses with open windows. Back then, the fans were used to, uh, swat flies away from the Eucharist. Seriously. Times have changed, and with the advent of air conditioning the fans are not needed for that purpose, so they've turned a lot more ornate and are used in processions and such.
A local custom at my church (I haven't encountered it elsewhere) is to have a pair of helpers, whether subdeacons or acolytes, holding the fans out over the Gospel while it's being read. They're held at a 45 degree angle directly over the pages, and I assume there's some religious meaning to it since they must block out a lot of the deacon/priest's reading light. As you might expect, it puts a strain on your arms holding those things up at that angle, especially during long readings like the Prodigal Son. So, dimly remembering my old physics lessons on leverage, I've taken to holding the fan with one hand as close as possible to the disk part and the other as close as possible to the bottom. The idea being to turn the fan's shaft into a big lever holding up the disk, with my upper arm playing the role of the fulcrum. The longer the lever, the easier it is to lift the thing, so I imagine it's to my advantage to hold it lower down.
It does indeed make things a lot easier for the lower arm, but of course it does nothing for the upper arm. I can't tell if it's gotten any worse for that arm since I started doing this. I have only a vague idea of how levers work (my old engineering teacher's simplistic "transforms distance moved into work" synopses). So, after that long preamble: does a longer lever put extra pressure on its fulcrum point compared to a short one?
Comment