Einstein Flip

A unique BMX stunt, created in a collaboration between a physicist and one of the UK’s top international stunt riders, was performed on 5 January 2005 to mark the launch of Einstein Year at the Science Museum in London.

The Einstein Flip Einstein was a keen cyclist and although there is no evidence to suggest he ever attempted a “360-degree back-flip with table-top”, or even a humble wheelie, it is claimed that inspiration for his theory of Special Relativity came to him while riding his bicycle.

One hundred years after the publication of his landmark papers on Special Relativity, Brownian Motion and the Photoelectric Effect, cycling and science came together once more in another world first: a BMX bicycle stunt designed by a physicist.

Dubbed the ‘Einstein Flip’, the stunt is described as ‘pushing the boundaries of what it is humanly possible to do on a bike’ by Cambridge University physicist Helen Czerski, who collaborated with professional BMX rider Ben Wallace to create the manoeuvre.

In the stunt, 18-year-old Wallace, a competitor in extreme sports events around the world, launched off a six-feet high ramp and spun backwards through 360 degrees while simultaneously folding his bike underneath him in a move known to BMX devotees as a ‘tabletop’.

At one point, onlookers saw Wallace upside down, travelling at 15mph, with his head 12-feet off the floor. The stunt draws upon a variety of physics theories including the conservation of angular momentum and Newton's laws of motion.

A factsheet on ‘The Physics Of The Einstein Flip’ is available to download here (PDF).
Or read our press release for more details of the stunt.