An Elevator Quiz Works on So Many Levels (pt 4)

Answer: Tesseract Elevator

Tesseract elevators are fictional. They were in the science fiction film "Interstellar", and were used to travel between different dimensions.

Hydraulic elevators have pistons that push the elevator up or down. They're simpler and less expensive to install and maintain than other types. They're mostly in low-rise and mid-rise buildings. Machine-Room-Less (MRL) elevators, are somewhat newer and eliminate the need for a separate machine room, since the mechanisms are more compact, and situated in the elevator shaft itself. Pneumatic elevators use air pressure to move the car, and are mostly used in residential areas.

Answer: Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina

The oldest operating elevator in the United States is on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. It has two Otis elevators that were installed in 1895, and are still operational for visitors at the time of writing.

The City Hall of New Bedford, Massachusetts elevator was installed in 1906 and has been in continuous operation since then, becoming a historical attraction. The elevator is semi-circular and is still operated by attendants, providing rides to visitors.

The E.V. Haughwout & Company Building had an elevator installed in 1857, but it is no longer operating. The Potbelly Sandwich Shop Elevator is also older, dating back to the 1870s or 1880s, but is no longer in use. That elevator is now owned by the Smithsonian Institution.

Answer: True

In the early days of the elevator, an elevator operator was highly skilled. The elevators were controlled by a shipper rope that the operators had to stop pulling before the elevator arrived at the requested floor because, even when they came to a stop, the cabin still moved. The experienced operator knew when to pull the rope and stop the engine so that the elevator glided smoothly to a halt.

In 1886, John H. Clark patented his "Electric Elevator" featuring a hydraulic elevator controlled using two electric push buttons. Other inventors would come up with updates to the technology and by the early 20th century, push-button elevators became more common. Occasionally, elevator operators are still found in high class hotels or shops.

Answer: China

China has around 11 million elevators, making up about 43% of the total number in the world This total includes escalators and moving walkways, but even excluding those, they still have 10.9 million elevators.

China has more elevators than the combined total of the other countries in the top ten; and none of the three other answer choices are in the top ten. China also leads the field in new installations, as the annual demand for more is over 1 million units. By comparison, the United States has about 900,000, that's about 1 elevator for every 366 Americans. In third place is Japan while Germany takes fourth place with about 600,000. All these figures are based on figures for the 2020s.

Answer: Shanghai, China

It is estimated that Shanghai has over 325,000 elevators installed across residential complexes, commercial properties, and skyscrapers. The city's rapid urbanization and very large population accounts for this amount, which has also led to advanced technology and innovations in elevators. Shanghai Tower alone has 149 elevators. Mexico City, Delhi, and Sao Paulo are not even in the top ten cities with the most elevators.

Shanghai also has the most elevators per capita and, although Tokyo and Hong Kong also have high ratios (4.8 and 4.5 elevators per 1,000 residents respectively), they have considerably fewer elevators in total. New York City also falls short with "only" 84,000 elevators across its buildings.

Answer: Americans With Disabilities Act

In the United States, the "Close Door" button often doesn't work as expected. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 has a big hand in why that is so, as the act requires that elevator doors remain open long enough for individuals with disabilities to enter and exit safely, which they have deemed to be a time of at least three seconds.

Many elevators manufactured after 1990 thus have either "Close Door" buttons that don't work, or have delays programmed into them that prevent instant closing when pressed. The "Close Door" button will sometimes work though if it has been more than three seconds since the door opened, or if the elevator is in Fire Service Mode, activated from the ground floor and allowing firefighters to control the elevator's operations. In other countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan, the "Close Door" buttons commonly work as expected.

Answer: China

Some reports cite the high-speed NexWay elevator at the Shanghai Tower Unit OB-3 as the fastest, and some cite the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre as having the fastest. They're very close, with both having speeds recorded between 44.7 (72 km/h) and 45.8 mph (73.8 km/h). But they are the two fastest and they are both in China. In fact, China has more of the world's top ten fastest elevators than any other country. The other three countries don't have any of the top ten fastest elevators in the world.

Answer: AngloGold Ashanti's Mponeng Gold Mine elevator

One of the world's tallest or, in this case, deepest elevators is at AngloGold Ashanti's Mponeng Gold Mine in South Africa. It takes three minutes to descend a remarkable 7,490 feet, which is more than four and a half times further than the elevators in the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

Fujitec Elevators in Snow Land travel a distance of 638 meters (the equivalent of about 2,090 feet). The Alimak Off Shore Drilling elevator is designed to operate with a travel height of up to 80 meters (about 262 feet).

Answer: The term "elevator pitch" was originally an elevator design feature,

An elevator pitch is a concise, interesting speech about an idea, product, or service, delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Its purpose is to spark further action by the listener. Philip Crosby was a writer specializing in corporate America during the 1970s and 1980s.He coined the term 'elevator speech', the idea being that his students should have a concise proposal which they could articulate to their target audience in the time it took to reach the end of an elevator trip.

Gustave Eiffel installed a private elevator leading to his secret apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower - it was only used by him and his select guests.

The percentage of buildings that don't have a 13th floor button is probably more likely 90% since the vast majority of buildings are low-rise (1-5 floors) or mid-rise (6-12 floors), and so don't even have a 13th floor. But in the spirit with which that statistic is intended, it's true that estimates say that 80-90% of high-rise buildings in the U.S. omit the 13th due to superstition and marketing considerations.

Elevator sickness occurs when the brain receives conflicting signals from the inner ear, which senses motion, and the eyes which are not necessarily perceiving the same movement. This is the same way in which any motion sickness is caused.

Answer: Moving in multiple directions

Thyssenkrupp Elevator is a leading global elevator and escalator innovator that has designed a system they call "MULTI", because it features elevators that can move in multiple directions. The CEO, Michael Cesarz, says the ropeless elevator cars work by using a magnetic field and artificial intelligence: "There is no limitation on heights...We can go one or two or three kilometers if we wish to, which is not possible with ropes." The company installed a test version in a tower in Rottweil, a town in southwestern Germany, using the same type of maglev (magnetic levitation) system used with high-speed trains.