Niagara Falls

The three waterfalls on the Niagara River at the Ontario–New York border.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
What if you funneled the Niagara Falls through a straw?	xkcd’s What If?	subject	The falls’ flow forced through a straw would make a jet rivalling a small star.
The Hidden Engineering of Niagara Falls	Wesley Crump	subject	The canals, tunnels, dams and power plants that manage the falls.

What would happen if one tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a straw? The short answer is: the Earth would be destroyed.

Role: subject
In the article: The thought experiment pushes the falls’ flow (at least 100,000 cubic feet per second) through a 7 mm straw; the water would have to move at around a quarter of the speed of light, and the jet would carry the power of a small star.
Why it matters: The falls are the benchmark flow rate for the whole hypothetical. Any big river would work in principle, but Niagara is the familiar image of an unstoppable volume of water.

Niagara Falls is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world.

Role: subject
In the article: A tour of the infrastructure around the falls: the Welland Canal for shipping, hydropower tunnels and plants, the International Control Dam that splits the flow, pumped storage, and the 1969 dewatering of the American Falls.
Why it matters: The falls are the whole subject: a natural wonder that is also one of the most heavily engineered rivers in the world.