How to Hang a Tightrope Wire | StarTalk

Everyone's first question would be: how do you get a wire from one building to another? If the wire is strong enough to hold your weight—not that you're heavy—but if it's strong enough to hold your weight, you can't. You're not—you can't just feed, okay.

Well, in the case of the World Trade Center, how do you pass the cable across silently and quickly? Because it was illegal. That's how you do it. But you know what? I'm going to answer with a visual thing, because I did something I never do; I brought the historic bow and arrow.

This—this is the bow. That's the bow, which is actually a shape, um, you know, plastic thing in two parts, which you put together in a blueprint tube. Because my friends were disguised as architects. And that's the arrow, and I know the scientist in you is not going to ask me, "What did you pad at the end?" It's obvious, right?

So, see, you're shooting to someone else. My accomplice on the North Tower shot the bow and arrow, to which was attached a fishing line. Imagine that! In the middle of the night, crawling on the South Tower, in complete darkness, you're looking for a fishing line. That in itself is a movie scene, which is actually in the movie, and this is, uh, you know, this was from my trunk, and you're the first one I let you touch it for a few seconds. Thank you.

So anyway, um, okay. So now that's the fishing line, and presumably, at this point, the cable is just dangling straight down? No, the cable is still in the North Tower, ready to be paid off. And what I need, when I got the fishing line, I need to pay off a Cordina—a little rope. And then they got the little rope, and they attach a big rope, they send it to me.

And to the big rope, I can attach the very, very heavy steel cable. So it was like all night of rigging, because the fishing line is not strong enough to hold the weight of the cable, but it gets—no—it connects you. Exactly! It connects! It creates—it's the engagement ring before the marriage.

No, I love that you say that, because very often, the poet in me cannot resist describing what happened by saying, "I saw the Twin Towers being born." I had the idea before they were born. I saw them grow up, and when they were adults, I married them with a smile of my catenary curve.

So, marriage ring—we're all in the same story. Yes, yes, that it's romantic indeed. Well, the French are very romantic.