Really, really play pool with floating billiards balls in a little watery pool. Weird currents near the pockets, with little gates that let the balls dop in with a splash. I think this would be an outside fountain- type pool game, but it would be waist high and would look (sort-of) like a normal pool table until you noticed it was full of water and the balls were floating.

Be especially cool if it was a "black-hole" sort of pool table with just one hole in the center that sucked the balls down whether you wanted it to or not...unlike my ex-girlfriend.

I suppose if the hole was lit up and the balls were the nine planets, you'd have a real theme going.
-- cloudface, May 13 2005

Billiackey Billiackey
If it freezes. [contracts, May 13 2005]

pool table pool pool_20table_20pool
I knew I'd seen this somewhere. Turns out it was my own annotation. [waugsqueke, May 13 2005]

HB archives: "Air Pool" Air_20Pool
Circa 2003. [lostdog]'s version of this idea using a cushion of air rather than water. [bristolz, May 15 2005]

are you proposing a 'pillow" of water similar to that in air hocky tables? seems like a good start of an idea.
-- dentworth, May 13 2005


what would you use to give the balls enough vhoosh to travel across the water? sounds like explosive devices are required (or hamsters of course)

hmmm, trained water voles?
-- po, May 13 2005


Hovercrafty-balls, po?
-- lostdog, May 13 2005


trying to dress a ball with a skirt might prove tricky.
-- po, May 13 2005


My father's father's brother's son's wife's father created air hockey. I haven't seen a cent. [+]
-- Blumster, May 13 2005


Baked in the movies, Star Trek V, The Final Frontier. Featured a 'pool' table, with balls floating in water on a recessed tabletop.

This could also be construed as a pun, you realize.
-- Soterios, May 13 2005


How do you get over the problem of gravity (between the balls themselves, not between each ball and Earth)? When I eat Cheerios and have only a few left that float on the surface of the milk, the uniformly sized orbs tend toward each other or the edge of the bowl when they are near enough. I imagine this could either be an obstacle causing masses of "sticky" billiard balls, or an interesting challenge, unique to this version of the game.
-- XSarenkaX, May 13 2005


How about a pool of mercury?
-- half, May 14 2005


[XSarenkaX] - I think that when you propose something like this, you have to accept that the game changes - thats the beauty of it. Personally, I think this is a cool idea. Mercury could be a solution, although you need to make the balls have some ability to sink, since you dont want to recreate a pool table. You might need to re-define the idea of pockets because of the liquid overflowing..

+
-- energy guy, May 14 2005


Your "Star Trek V" reference saddens me greatly, my friend. Thank you; I'll rent the movie (again). There is no mind-meld which can cure my blacken'd woe. Let us not lose perspective and drown our hamsters over a silly game. We shall drown our sorrows instead with the creature known to the locals only as "Kha-Nyou." It is decreed. Now, play! Or the enigmatic she-ensign known to the locals only as "Nurse Chapel" shall die...
-- cloudface, May 14 2005


how about molecular pool? You use an an electron microscope to play on a tiny pool table.
-- SpocksEyebrow, May 14 2005


Use plutonium! ka-BOOM@#$%@#%
-- cloudface, May 14 2005


How about useing a pool que that sucks up water and forces it out over a short time to keep the balls rolling through the water's resistance. Like a really long turkey baster pool que.
-- Cracked, May 15 2005


<from Barcelona>¿Que?</fB>
-- gnomethang, May 15 2005


//you need to make the balls have some ability to sink//

How about velcro (fuzzy-side) balls paired with velcro (crispy side) "sockets" attached at the appropriate areas (corners and sides) of the pool? Does wet velcro still work well?
-- XSarenkaX, May 16 2005


I've had velcro sealing pockets on swimming trunks, so apparently.
-- DrCurry, May 16 2005


Do meatballs float?
-- justaguy, May 16 2005


Meatballs are the favorite meal of "Kha- Nyou."
-- cloudface, May 16 2005


//How do you get over the problem of gravity (between the balls themselves, not between each ball and Earth)? When I eat Cheerios and have only a few left that float on the surface of the milk, the uniformly sized orbs tend toward each other or the edge of the bowl when they are near enough.//

This is a surface-tension effect, not a gravity effect. The gravitational force between two Cheerios 1inch apart is about 10e -15 Newtons. This would accelerate the two Cheerios towards eachother at about 10e-12 metres per second- squared. They would therefore collide after about 158,113 seconds, or 43 hours, by which time they would be soggy.

Please note that this calculation assumes that you are eating your cereal in a vacuum, with zero- viscosity massless milk. I am assuming that one Cheerio weighs 1 gram, and I disregard relativistic effects.
-- Basepair, May 16 2005


Thanks for the info basepair. I thought the physics of Cheerios sounded a tad suspect, but then started realizing why I find it so difficult to get off the sofa.
-- weedy, May 18 2005


<shoves weedy>
-- po, May 18 2005



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