Have mercy on us all.
You can imagine The BBC's execs working on a series: Andrew Lloyd Webber's search for a Charlie.
Or even worse, another Hollywood re-make.
The Royal Society of Chemistry will on Friday announce the winner of its challenge to resolve The Italian Job's cliffhanger ending, the Telegraph reports. Michael Caine's Charlie Croker and his team are left in a rather tight spot at the film's finale, as their bus teeters over a ravine and they have have to decide whether to …
that the boys at my junior school (yes the film is that old) decided on was...
All move the the front of the bus (drivers area) Then for one person to go towards the rear and throw a bar at a time forwards to be stacked at the front (also initially in the drivers area where there was a bulkhead to stop it slipping backwards again until the bus became level).
I also vaguely remember solving a problem based on this in A level mathematical mechanics.
Once Charlie and th gang successfully move the gold the coach will eithe fall or be stuck in equilibrium.
They are then stuck at the top of a mountain with a shitload of Gold and no means to move it. No mobile phones in them days, you can't ring for a monkey navigated helicopter taxi like you can in this day and age.
Then rush out as quick as possible through doors, windows, etc. There's only a few of them, so it'd not take that long if they kicked out the front window too.
They survive, the gold falls to the bottom of the cliff, safely locked up inside the bus. Then they go back and collect it in a stolen car. They were just 'round the corner from a restaurant if memory serves, so there should be plenty cars- and if a mini could carry the gold then a bigger car should have no problem with it!
The real trick would have been getting it all back through customs- "Errr.... yeah, it's... prop gold. We were doing an Opera. In Italy, you see, and they needed prop gold." Or driving it further after you've run out of diesel.
It's good to see that science is trying to engage the public again!
re: I think people are missing one thing here
it's not a problem - once at the front, the weight of the gold will keep the coach level, this will allow one or more people to get off the bus and then find some of the rocks or concrete road markers to prop under the back of the bus to keep it there while they offload the gold
re: Everyone pile into the front
sadly your memory doesn't serve - there's no sign of a resturant in the film anywhere nearby - certainly not for the last several corners where Big Will had been throwing the bus around enthusiastically
also - can't let the bus fall down the hill with the gold. as the camera pans away from the bus at the end, you see the bottom of the cliff is a big lake isn' t it? so then you'd be faced with recovering it from under the lake - and the mafia and the italian police are still looking for you, you're not over the border yet, and the commotion created would be sure to attract their attention
a better plan is to get Marky Mark Whalberg and whoever had the idea for that godawful sequel to get on the bus as well - then, even if you lost the gold and everyone died, at least some good would have come from it
Get some TNT, throw to the back of the bus, blow the bloody doors off, explosion also throws the gold and remains of bus up in the air, use that need trick from transformers and bus turns into some robot carrying gold in one hand and the lads in another. Cut to close up of angolina-jolly-nice havin' it off with keira knightly-but-once-a-week-would-do-me rubbin the gold bars over each other. One of the bars gets suck in an uncomfortable place, and then we have caine saying 'hang on girls, I've got an idea'
THE END
at the end of the file they are all standing at the frount and it is stable then THEY ALL MOVE for the gold and it tips WHY THE FUDGE do they all move if only 1 moves then the rest keep his waite balanced and they only need get 1 or 2 bars to make the hole shitng very stable and the rest can be moved very quickley
the stupidy of the pepol in the end realy anoyed me other than that it was a brilent film
If the film-makers and actors want to become rich then all they have to do is leave us with a cliff-hanger ending. This increases the publicity (we're still talking about it years later).
Then they royalties pot is larger...
Aren't we all missing the obvious?
It's not real gold anyway. It's just bits of wood with gold foil wrapped around them. Who would want to risk their life for wood?
Paris - cos we all want to be in the back of a motorised vehicle with her, rocking it about...
Get that gun from Portal move the bricks around? all too easy.
They all huddle together which generates heat, they generate enough heat to warm up the gold. It melts displacing the weight across the van. Sure you may lose a few fluid ounces out the back, but you are left with a gold coated van, making it even easier to get through customs and before you know it, you've left Calais and can see the white cliffs on the horizon.
First, if they didn't have suitable cutting equipment to hand, someone rubs their hands together until they are sore. Then they saw something in half - anything light will do. Then they shove the two halves down the coach and push them together to make a whole. Repeat the last two steps until there are enough holes to reduce the weight, then one man can start unloading the gold. Then each man shouts for joy until he is hoarse, and then loads up his horse with as much gold as it can carry and rides it away.
Well, I'm sure it would have made sense back in the playground.