Originally posted by WoodPushIIRC both Discovery and the NG Channel did documentaries on this thing. Neither was very thorough-going, but they did illustrate the basics well enough. It's a pretty thing, isn't it, for such a big lump of metal?
I'd heard of a somewhat similar mechanism on bridges, but I never knew about this mechanism to keep large towers from swaying.
Simple idea but pretty cool.
http://atlasobscura.com/place/tuned-mass-damper-of-taipei-101
Richard