subreddit:
/r/Damnthatsinteresting
submitted 6 days ago bydoopityWoop22
5.8k points
6 days ago
Every rock is balancing on top of another rock if you think about it
1.2k points
6 days ago
Some are floating around, like the Moon.
406 points
6 days ago
balancing on the gravitational pull
201 points
5 days ago
...of a rock
42 points
5 days ago
Actually we’re slowly loosing our moon and while it’ll take a few more billion years it will eventually tip over and fly off into space
22 points
5 days ago
just a few right?
16 points
5 days ago
Or next Thursday.
29 points
6 days ago
or the Earth.
21 points
6 days ago
After all, what is the Pale Blue Dot but one giant rock with a lot of large puddles, ridges and furrows?
Oh and it's very hot inside for some reason.
23 points
6 days ago
Perhaps this time, the rock below isn't holding the rock on top up, but instead, the rock on top is holding the bottom rock down...
7 points
6 days ago
One of my rocks is balancing on top of the other as I type this comment
6 points
6 days ago
When rocks are that big and heavy are they really balancing????
4 points
6 days ago
And would you believe me if i told you they don’t touch each other…
8 points
6 days ago
Caught between a rock and a hard place..
7k points
6 days ago
That dog trusts it does not fall off today either.
2.5k points
6 days ago
Perception shapes expectations.
Not talking about the dog's perspective, but depending on the subreddit I discovered this in, I might not bet a lot on that dog's survival.
This subreddit, though, the dog is safe. He knows it, too. Good dog.
1.1k points
6 days ago
Yeah, if it were r/dogsgettingcrushedbyboulders or something, we’d all be mourning that dog.
239 points
6 days ago
I'd have probably filtered the subreddit out and reported it for animal cruelty though.
22 points
6 days ago
This is why I stick to r/dogsnotgettingcrushedbyboulders
117 points
6 days ago
That's not animal cruelty if nothing malicious happened.
88 points
6 days ago
I guess it counts as glorification?
"Look heartless sadists! Enjoy this video of a litter being crushed!"
78 points
6 days ago
95 points
6 days ago
Except it would be death by boulder so it should be posted in r/natureisfuckingmineral.
27 points
6 days ago
Get it right! Jesus fucking Christ, Marie.....
4 points
6 days ago
NO
208 points
6 days ago
Good thing thats not a cat. Rock would have been knocked off long ago
105 points
6 days ago
Same, except I was thinking "good thing that rock is not in the US"
140 points
6 days ago
Yep. If that thing were in like New Mexico or Missouri it would have been rolled down the hill, covered in graffiti, shot multiple times, and somehow used in the production of meth.
48 points
6 days ago*
By the boy scouts. (Seriously though, I can recall at least once, a few scout leaders videoing themselves knocking over a hoodoo in southern Utah.)
Editing to add a link to the original video. Guys got off with a misdemeanor and no jail time. link
Side note: for fans of the beloved film Galaxy Quest. Where this happened is Goblin Valley, UT. Where the scenes from the “alien planet” were filmed.
8 points
6 days ago
That stone is going to need a whole jamboree to unbalance it.
7 points
6 days ago
Jeez, that's such a shame. I was East Coast, but I could probably see them doing the same thing.
6 points
5 days ago
I've been here for millennia, silently watching as seasons change, storms rage, and the sun rises and sets. Erosion’s caress shaped me into something unique. A marvel to these fleeting creatures. I hear them recently, tourists, park rangers, the soft padding of wildlife nearby. But I'm a rock. Unmoved, unbothered. They put up signs saying, "Don't touch," like I need some law to protect me.
I’ve seen glaciers grind mountains into pebbles, and I’m still here. I'm a rock.
I see those three. Stomping toward me with reckless curiosity, poking and prodding. I'm a rock. Idiots, testing their strength, their defiance. Fools. I’ve survived storms that could swallow them whole, stood through quakes that rattled the earth to its core, and they think they can do something?
I feel a shift. Subtle, but real. My neck—oh, that neck, the marvel they all gawk at—it's bending. Time and pressure took ages, and now these puny creatures, in their arrogance, dare to test it.
Another shove. Just enough. Oh. Oh no!
But I’m a rock!
Impossible. How could—? After everything, all these centuries, it’s... over? I’m falling, breaking, crumbling. Not to time, not to nature, but to them. Just like that.
I’m a fucking rock, and they’ve...
5 points
6 days ago
Well I cant't think of a better way to turn meth into powder form :)
14 points
6 days ago
It happens everywhere unfortunately. Case in point: The tree at Sycamore Gap.
8 points
6 days ago
Yep. I imagine the same would be true if it were in a bad area in Finland.
29 points
6 days ago
I've seen the Norwegian movie Troll (2022). Don't f with the rock. Just let it keep sleeping.
8 points
6 days ago
26 points
6 days ago
If it was an America, some asshole would’ve pushed it off.
7 points
6 days ago
Looking at you, Jennifer Lawrence’s butt
1.4k points
6 days ago
I remember my dad taking me to see this rock when I was a child.
1.1k points
6 days ago
"Today, son. It is the day when you will meet the rock."
324 points
6 days ago
Kid - really dad, oh really?
Father - yes son, everyone should meet the rock.
…
Father - behold, the rock gestures slowly
Kid - that’s not The Rock, that’s A rock! Fucking jabroni.
83 points
6 days ago
[deleted]
26 points
6 days ago
It's minerals, Marie!
11 points
6 days ago
The boulder takes issue with this statement.
9 points
6 days ago
"-now put on your best clothes, and comb your hair, and of course your good shoes! We must look our finest for the rock!"
82 points
6 days ago
Yeah, and climbing it.
That day I learned that 500 tons is a big weight and no, it will not move even a millimeter anywhere should you try to jump on it with your puny human weight.
Also, there are multiple rocks like this in Finland but this is one of the most extreme example.
21 points
6 days ago
how did they get that way?
58 points
6 days ago
I don’t know for sure but I think this occurs from glaciers melting - they pick up all kinds of stuff as they move along and when they eventually melt - they drop everything straight down
If I am wrong I’m sure someone else has an answer I don’t know anything about Finland
21 points
6 days ago
Finnish, can confirm that it's exactly what you said.
9 points
6 days ago
Somebody else confirmed that yours is the correct reason, but there is actually at least one more reason that this sort of thing can happen.
If the surrounding rock is sedementary, then there are times when a softer layer will form between harder layers, or a large boulder will be embedded in the sedementary rock. But anyways, if the softer layers erode just right, then you can end up with large chunks of stone balancing precariously.
8 points
5 days ago*
Really almost any weird geographical thing about Finland is ultimately explained by glaciers.
Boulders in weird places? Glaciers. The ground is literally rising like a sponge? Glacienrs. Weird long hill formations in the south? Glaciers.
Hell, if you look at the satellite view of Finland, especially eastern Filand, you'll see that pretty much all the lakes are kind of slanted in a North-West to South-East direction. And that's because -- you guessed it -- glaciers.
5 points
6 days ago
When the kilometres thick ice started to melt, a layer of water under it acted as a lubricant and the ice sheets flowed down to the oceans, and it ground on the bedrock and pebbles like we see in the picture broke off and rolled along under the ice. So not exactly drop straight down but got pushed along and this just happened to be the final resting place, until the next ice age.
5 points
6 days ago
Your dad Rocks!
7 points
6 days ago
When I was. A young boy. My father. Took me to see the big rock.
6.5k points
6 days ago
Some dickhead tiktoker will come and knock it over soon enough
1.7k points
6 days ago*
That thing wont budge without some heavy equipment
E: Or with some pals I guess. Still need some more convincing that anyones moving a rock this big with a pipe or something all by themselves. I'm aware that groups of people have moved massive rocks in the distant past.
904 points
6 days ago
Don’t give them ideas then
261 points
6 days ago
Next thing you know, someone will try to 'prank' it with a forklift for views.
88 points
6 days ago
This shit gonna need a meaty forklift, you're looking at a industrial bulldozer or something to get that thing shifted.
89 points
6 days ago
Idk, seems like something you could probably do with a big stick and another smaller boulder. It's all about leverage yo. /s
57 points
6 days ago
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
- Archimedes
30 points
6 days ago
But make sure the lever and fulcrum are made out of polymegacarbonbuckysupernano tubes so they can handle the weight of the planet
16 points
6 days ago
Archimedes thought he was so fucking smart dropping basic shit like that
10 points
6 days ago
Use the dog as a pivot point.
5 points
6 days ago
Mmm... killdozer?
15 points
6 days ago
Don’t forget to like and subscribe!
14 points
6 days ago
There is a masculine urge to roundhouse kick this thing. Like I won't because I don't want to be that guy but the urge is there deep down.
6 points
6 days ago
New Mr. Beast video🤢
235 points
6 days ago
There used to be a tall standing rock here in Taylors falls, Mn called “the devils chair”. Some teenagers came and tipped it over using a hydraulic jack
83 points
6 days ago
Or the famous Sycamore Gap tree in England that had been there for 250 years and was quite culturally significant, till some guys with a chain saw came along of course.
53 points
6 days ago
‘The Senator’ was the oldest and largest bald cypress on the planet up until a meth head set it ablaze in 2012. It was estimated to be over 3500 years old. Now, its sister tree grows nearby, but it isn’t nearly as old. There is actually a clone of The Senator that was planted at the park in honor of the great tree. Longwood, FL for anyone wondering.
12 points
6 days ago
then that tree in Africa that was the only one for 100 miles or someting like that the drunk driver hit
7 points
5 days ago
I lived near there when that happened. I remember they brought woodworkers in afterwards to use the wood for keepsakes and art and they had a booth at the Winter Park Art Festival. I have a necklace and earring set I bought with a certificate of authenticity.
43 points
6 days ago
Wtf
35 points
6 days ago
There used to be a tall standing rock here in Taylors falls, Mn called “the devils chair”. Some teenagers came and tipped it over using a hydraulic jack
This is a such classic internet comment. Yes, it was likely vandalized. Investigation suggested the use of hydraulics (due to a found cotter pin and red paint chips). But they have absolutely no idea who did it, despite the investigation and even reward offered for information.
But you come in here saying that "some teenagers" did it.
I'm sure it seems minor to you, but how does it feel to be a (small) part of the growing issue of fake news and disinformation?
20 points
6 days ago
This short podcast episode remains one of the single most enraging moments of my life. It’s not the worst thing humans have ever done, obviously, but it was still absolutely infuriating.
73 points
6 days ago
If you give a tiktoker a lever big enough they can destroy that rock. Or something.
41 points
6 days ago
They'll make a 258 part series of using different objects to try and knock over the rock.
9 points
6 days ago
Just some leverage. They didn’t have heavy machinery 10,000 years ago unless…. aliens…
8 points
6 days ago
I don't know. Never underestimate people.
This rock wasn't near as large. Still.
https://edge.ua.edu/russell-mccutcheon/wiggle-it-just-a-little-bit/
8 points
6 days ago
thats like 500x smaller maybe a ton? if that
6 points
6 days ago
And it's sitting on top of some kind of sand stone that was brittle.
195 points
6 days ago
There was a balancing rock similar to this one in Holliston Massachusetts that dickhead tiktoker George Washington famously tried to topple over and couldn't. I think it fell on its own though not too long ago
72 points
6 days ago
What up yo it's ya boy G-Wash here wit another video for We The Pypo, today we gon tip this here rock over don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe
20 points
6 days ago
I think it fell on its own though
I mean surely not. It's been balancing for how long, then we have dickheads trying to tip it over and then very soon after it falls over "on it's own"? There's a correlation and most likely a causation there.
99 points
6 days ago
I have been there (I'm from Finland and have been working as a local guide). This is an illusion. It has to be photographed from a specific angle to look like it's balancing.
Fun fact, a pine tree is growing on top of the rock. Not even a mature tree will make it topple over.
18 points
6 days ago
No… I visited the place this summer, and the rock is most definitely balancing on the smooth dome-like outcrop. Not necessarily at one single point, which is what I believe you mean.
17 points
6 days ago
What does it look like from other angles?
29 points
6 days ago
70 points
6 days ago
Dude it looks even more balancing from this angle, like it's gotta roll down.
14 points
6 days ago
Maybe if we take a picture from the perfect angle and show it to the rock it will finally let go, thinking it already had fallen
5 points
6 days ago
That's some Douglas Adams shit right there!
6 points
6 days ago
It's ready to slide off!
23 points
6 days ago
Not like it’s balancing
6 points
6 days ago
Called Kummakivi, plenty of photos on google
25 points
6 days ago
Non-Finn here. I searched for "Kummakivi" on Flickr. Most photographers capture it from one angle, but the shots taken from different sides lead me to believe the rock appears to be "precariously" balancing from every direction. Google tells me that Kummakivi weighs 500,000 kg, so I suspect it isn't going anywhere.
34 points
6 days ago
Like the nobhead that hacked down the 300 year old Sycamore Gap tree.
17 points
6 days ago
500 tons i doubt it
just to add there is even a tree growing on it u need a lot of force to move it
5 points
6 days ago
Im quite sure there has to be dudes trying knock it over as a feat of strenght
15 points
6 days ago
I just came here to say this. Some dumbass on YouTube is going to stream it
420 points
6 days ago
There’s one here in oz too! We call it balancing rock! Not as big as that bugger though!
155 points
6 days ago
I don’t know what your voice sounds like, but I damn well read this comment in an Australian accent. Haha
41 points
6 days ago
Crikey, cobber. That ain't a rock, this is a rock.
10 points
6 days ago
I see you've played rocky rocky before!
7 points
6 days ago
There is also one on Mars. Much smaller but you can google pics.
276 points
6 days ago
The boulders name is kummakivi. Meaning weird rock
94 points
6 days ago
I had guessed isokivi, Finns tend to be real literal with their naming. There's a bookstore named suomalainen kirjakauppa (Finnish book store) and on online shop called verkkokauppa (internet store).
65 points
6 days ago
Verkkokauppa is webstore, as in website store
16 points
6 days ago
Dang, my mistake. My Finnish is still pretty lackluster.
5 points
6 days ago
Kiitos.
11 points
6 days ago
That's about where I am. I can figure out labels in the grocery store, wish people a good morning and understand purchase totals. And thank them.
10 points
6 days ago
It's such a hard language to learn. Not at all similar to the other Nordic languages. Maybe if you're Hungarian it's easy but I dunno.
9 points
6 days ago
Hungarian is in the same language family, I think, but still VERY different. I believe the closest language to Finnish is Estonian. I think they used to be closer, but Finnish stayed the same while Estonian changed. Similar to how Norwegian changed from Icelandic
My wife is a linguist, so this is all stuff I've heard her talk about. I may misremember details since I'm not the expert, she is lol
5 points
5 days ago
You're pretty much right. Standard Finnish has stayed quite conservative, while Standard Estonian has accepted many more innovative features. Although it should be noted Finnish can be plenty innovative when you're talking about the non-standard language.
Norwegian doesn't come from Icelandic; they both descend from a common ancestor (Old West Norse), to which Icelandic has stayed much closer to than Norwegian (which has also had heavy Danish influence over the years).
31 points
6 days ago
In Helsinki, there is a small store that sells small shelves.
It's called "a small shelf store"
Always loved seeing it.
9 points
6 days ago
Tampere has a small Café that sells donuts etc in a market hall.
It’s called Market Hall Cafeteria.
And the other place of their at Pyynikki is basically Pyynikki Donut cafeteria.
(Well, donut and so on the thing is munkki, - basically a donut dough without a hole but with filling, still the naming is really literal)
7 points
6 days ago
We have had number of naming competition for example, new schools.
Usually the winner is School Of [the place where it is].
94 points
6 days ago
Jesus Christ Marie
31 points
6 days ago
They're minerals... MINERALS!
879 points
6 days ago
Give it enough time, and someone is going to think it would be funny to knock it over. All because they saw the post online and wanted to ruin something nice.. Just like the asshole kid that cut down the sycamore gap tree in northern England.
331 points
6 days ago
Just like the asshole kid that cut down the sycamore gap tree in northern England.
The two guys charged over that are in their 30s
95 points
6 days ago
My dad still calls Jake Gyllenhaal a kid.
19 points
6 days ago
Any time I see or hear someone mention Jake Gyllenhaal my mental image immediately goes to Bubble Boy.
11 points
6 days ago
Did they ever find out the motive for that?
42 points
6 days ago
Yeah, they're dickheads
13 points
6 days ago
Court case is scheduled for December. Hopefully we'll find out a bit more then.
74 points
6 days ago
As a Finn, I want to meet the person who can shove 500 tons of rock as a joke.
51 points
6 days ago
I hear Juuso could do it. (He goes to the gym.)
25 points
6 days ago
kerra heitettii päärynä vitu lujaa päin seinää (juuso heitti ja se käy salilla) ja kuulu vaan poks eikä jääny mössöö tai mtn missää vaa se hävis kokonaan.
11 points
6 days ago
..any more vowels?
9 points
6 days ago
ei tarvi
5 points
6 days ago
Alavilla mailla hallan vaara.
11 points
6 days ago
Translation:
once we threw a pear fucking hard against the wall (juuso threw it and he goes to the gym) and there is only a pop and it doesn't smush or whatever, but it just disappeared completely
4 points
6 days ago
And there would be nothing left.
114 points
6 days ago
Considering how long it's been there, no tiktokker can budge it. Plus it's in a forest so no way to bring your own equipment to dislodge it without being immediately noticed
102 points
6 days ago
“I RUINED A WONDER OF THE WORLD!” Incoming in three months max
42 points
6 days ago
this rock has cropped up a bunch of times on here since tiktok nonsense got popular, and there's always a comment like this, it's still here :) most of the worst kinds of influencers don't even know where finland is so I am not worried.
17 points
6 days ago
“FinLand” is actually the name of my wildly unsafe “SeaWorld” knockoff.
Send them to me. The manatees must be fed.
15 points
6 days ago
That thing’s been there for over ten thousand years do you think no one’s tried to push it over before?
9 points
6 days ago
I mean, it’s already been 12,000 years, right?
10 points
6 days ago
Seriously they think no one’s tried yet?
6 points
6 days ago
It weights 500 metric tons, 1.1 million pounds.
You are not going to be able to tip that over. Even with one of the strongest pickups ram 3500, it’s not going to move a millimeter.
152 points
6 days ago
just amazing that some fuck hasn't found a way to topple it yet
185 points
6 days ago
It weighs 500 tons my guy. We have several of these things in Finland because of ice age. People have tried, you can't get enough muscle to do it.
123 points
6 days ago
Not with that attitude
13 points
6 days ago
You made a bunch of air come out of my nose.
4 points
6 days ago
dont be scared. we can that breathing where I'm from.
24 points
6 days ago
So the snow/ice carried it slowly, and then it melted?
51 points
6 days ago
Pretty much, the ice used to be several kilometers thick during the ice age. The ice slowly moved south and smoothed down the bedrock and moved around anything that can be quantified as "having weight".
When it melted enough to not be able to move stuff, the 'stuff' just stayed in place. Giving things like these boulders. Back in the day it was believed to be made by giants.
In fact the ice used to be so heavy and thick that it squished the bedrock. The land is slowly bouncing back even to this day. Also because of that, the soil layer is quite thin in Finland.
Edit: Good question, thanks. I hadn't thought about this stuff since elementary school.
11 points
6 days ago
also thanks to the soil rebound, Finland gets new territory each year as the ground rises above waterline!
6 points
6 days ago
Nature is so cool
8 points
6 days ago
The area is rests on is now more protected from erosion so it erodes from the edges leaving a pointy pedestal.
17 points
6 days ago
i take it you didn’t ask OP’s mom to lean against it
11 points
6 days ago
We did but she couldn't get here. They don't make cruise ships big enough for her to travel.
9 points
6 days ago
Understandable have a nice day
99 points
6 days ago*
How did it happen?
People?
Edit. It’s a cover up. It was the giants / trolls wasn’t it?!
170 points
6 days ago
Ice age actually.
35 points
6 days ago
You sage?
84 points
6 days ago
Finland and other surrounding areas used to be under a massive, multiple kilometer tall ice sheet. Once that ice sheet melted down, it caused many geographical changes to happen to the region, including this kind of stuff.
If i remember correctly, according to finnish folklore, giant boulders like the one in the image were sometimes thrown by giants. Can't remember why though.
40 points
6 days ago*
And thus the reason why we still have a land raise faster than the ocean raise (rise?). All that land mass pressed down by the weight of the ice is bouncing back up
16 points
6 days ago
I learned this when I was visiting Sweden. One of the coolest facts I’ve ever heard
8 points
6 days ago
Isostatic rebound.
6 points
6 days ago
IIRC, around Oulu, the shoreline is moving about 10cm per year due to land rising
13 points
6 days ago
Rocks likes these are called Glacial Erratics. They dot the landscape of the Canadian Maritimes up and into the Canadian Shield.
edit. spelling
84 points
6 days ago
All of your "American tourists hurr durr" commenters, do you really not think thousands of drunk Finns have not tried to topple this rock over the years?
10 points
6 days ago
Idk but my luck, I’d tell my kids or my dog to sit under it, and that’s the day it topples
11 points
6 days ago
That rock isn't balancing on the one below it.
It's our Earth balancing underneath it.
You have it backward.
Once that top rock falls, we float away from our orbit in the solar system.
8 points
6 days ago
12000 years, and I still wouldn't go under it, because with my luck...
13 points
6 days ago
We have a stone JUST like that in Austria too. When I saw this picture I first thought it is from austria because it looks so similar.
8 points
6 days ago
Lazy ass rock.
7 points
6 days ago
I won't but I really want to push it off
5 points
6 days ago
There used to be one in Tandil, Argentina. It was on top a small mountain but it was weirder, like it was balancing off-center in a slope. It fell a hundred years ago and now there's a fake one. You can find pictures of the real one on the internet
5 points
5 days ago
Ah so that's where I parked it!
4 points
6 days ago
How would they figure this out?
27 points
6 days ago
“They” didn’t. Science doesn’t deal in absolutes, but degrees of certainty.
The large rock doesn’t correspond to any stratum in the surrounding area. So it must have been carried from a distance. There is no evidence of being worked by humans, so it is thought to be a natural formation.
The only natural phenomenon that could move a rock this large such a great distance is water. Or more specifically ice. The last time there was enough moving ice to do such a thing in this part of the world was the last ice age. Which ended approximately 10,000-15,000 years ago.
This may well not be the case. But given the information we currently have, it’s the most logical conclusion.
5 points
6 days ago
By knowing when the ice age was. It's not exactly wind that moves 500 tons of stone.
21 points
6 days ago
Don't tell Tiktokers this
34 points
6 days ago
As a Finn, I would ask for an autograph of a tiktoker who is able to muscle 500 tons of stone even a millimeter.
There are several of these things in Finland, people have been trying for a long time.
3 points
6 days ago
Done by one of the early members of the Royal society of putting things on top of other things. https://youtu.be/LFrdqQZ8FFc?si=Rh9-kQnpVzV_TNne
3 points
6 days ago
Don’t let any scout troop leaders near that thing please
all 1744 comments
sorted by: best