Dec 14, 2006 By Frances Borsodi Zajac 7 min read

Yes, that’s a real bed of nails that children are lining up to lay on at the Carnegie Science Center on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. Program presenter Kelly Tatton has visitors lie one at a time on a Plexiglas bed, which is geared to have the nails rise slowly through the bed and lift the visitor.

The nails look authentic – touch any one of the nearly 5,000 in the bed and you will find out they are real. Yet, no one who tried the bed of nails one day recently complained of pain.

“It doesn’t feel like anything. It feels like you’re on a normal floor,’ said Jacob Booth, 11, of Leechburg.

“It’s quite relaxing,’ said Karl Schulz, 10, of Point Breeze.

The bed of nails – and the science behind it (weight distribution) – is part of new traveling exhibit called “Risk,’ that’s running through May on the second floor of the science center, next to the miniature railroad and the planetarium. “Risk,’ developed by the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, presents a playful look at risk and risk assessment.

“This is a different exhibit. It’s very hands-on yet you have to look at what this exhibit is trying to convey – we make risk-management choices every day. Am I going to eat fried food or a salad? Am I going to jaywalk across the street when nobody’s looking?’ said Mysty Krisiak, staff educator for traveling exhibits.

Krisiak, a Uniontown native now living in Butler, said, “A lot of things talk about probability: how probable is it if you buy a lottery ticket that you will hit the lottery? What is your chance of catching a cold if you drink after someone with a cold? What are the risks of pollution? Another thing I find really cool is that it shows you how engineers have created things to mitigate risk.’

That ranges from a display that shows a birdcage that coal miners took into the mines with them a century ago to detect noxious gas to a display of modern equipment used by firefighters to keep them safe while doing their jobs.

But even something that looks dangerous might not be.

“The bed of nails is a perfect example,’ said Krisiak. “A large number of people say, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ I say, ‘Science keeps you safe.’ On the surface, this looks like a risky thing to do. It’s really not.’

She walks over to another site where a heavy-looking weight is suspended in the air. A sign notes this object weighs 5,000 grams.

Krisiak said, “It’s really only a little over seven pounds. It’s all in what you perceive to be risky.’

Krisiak notices a boy talking about the bed of nails. He doesn’t want to try it. Krisiak tries to persuade him.

“But it’s a bed of nails!’ he tells her.

“If you’re lying on the bed of nails there’s an equal distribution of force. Your weight is spread over 5,000 nails so it’s not going to hurt,’ she tells him.

In the end, she doesn’t convince him and that’s OK. But the boy has tried walking a 7-inch-wide beam that lets him imagine he is 17 stories above the ground. So, Krisiak asks him to try the beam walk again but to make it a little riskier by covering one eye. He agrees.

A tough choice. An easy choice. Life is full of them.

But as Krisiak noted, “All things considered, most choices fall in the middle.’

An example of this is an exhibit on the stock market.

Krisiak said, “A slim number will hit it big. A small number will lose it all. The vast majority will fall right in the middle.’

And what about dangers such as pollution? An exhibit gets visitors to think by asking questions such as what is the biggest environmental risk in their communities and does pollution from other countries put us at risk? The answers are posted to allow for an exchange of ideas.

An artifacts display on how people have protected themselves through the ages includes the coalminer’s birdcage as well as chain mail worn by knights. To show different ways people have protected their heads, there are helmets used by ancient samurai, early 20th century football players and late 20th century astronauts in the space shuttle.

Other modern displays include a firefighting uniform and equipment as well as a spider boot, which is used by people who walk through mine fields to detonate land mines. There’s also a global-positioning system, a satellite navigation system used in many types of vehicles, including cars.

Engineers have even used science to make people safer by changing something as simple as a dashboard in a car.

An exhibit shows the dash from a 1971 van with its hard blue wheel and long panel. The structure is a single piece of steel. There’s no air bag, a lot of edges, jutting knobs and controls that are mounted out of reach.

In comparison, there’s a dash from a 1988 car that has a tubular metal frame with foam padding that can absorb impact. There are two air bags, essential controls at the fingertips and a design that puts more distance between the driver and the windshield.

“How Old Are You Really?’ is a computer program that shows how daily management decisions can affect quality of life, such as “Do you exercise?’ and “Do you eat fatty foods?’

“We Dare You to Take This Quiz’ is a series of 20 true-false questions such as “I don’t like trying exotic foods’ that show how comfortable you are with risk.

“Who Wins What?’ is based on a 1654 event in which two French mathematicians were asked to figure how to split a pot when a gambling game was interrupted.

“Their solution was the beginning of the modern theory of probability,’ said Krisiak, noting visitors can sit down at a table and figure out the outcome themselves.

Visitors also can take in a film in “Risk! Cinema’ that features interviews with risk-takers who include Mount Everest survivor Beck Weathers, race car driver Johnny Rutherford, astronaut Barbara Morgan, bullfighter Rob Smets, New York firefighter Regina Wilson and Amelia Rudolph, founder of Project Bandaloop in which the artists dance in the air while being suspended from mountains and tall buildings.

In the film, Weathers, who almost died on Everest, says, “There’s something about being at risk that makes you feel incredibly alive.’

But Rudolph noted, “I tell you love is the scariest and most risky thing we do if we do it right.’

The exhibition ends with “Beam Walk’ where visitors can imagine they are construction workers in a tall city building. They must walk across that beam as they watch birds fly by and hear traffic sounds from below.

“People are really enjoying (Risk),’ said Krisiak. “It’s thought provoking even for the youngest visitors. When you ask them why they don’t get hurt on the bed of nails they say because there’s so many and my weight’s spread out. They get it. We like things that are thought provoking for everybody.’

In conjunction with “Risk,’ the science center is showing a new IMAX film called “Adrenaline Rush: The Science of Risk’ about the effects of risk-taking on the body and enjoy a new show in Kitchen Theater called “Food Factor,’ a demonstration on what kinds of risks are in the kitchen everyday.

Carnegie Science Center is located at One Allegheny Avenue next to Heinz Field.

For more information, call 412-237-3400 or visit the Web site www.CarnegieScienceCenter.org.