A Jacob's ladder is a folk toy consisting of blocks of wood held together by strings or ribbons. When the ladder is held at one end, blocks appear to cascade down the strings. However, this effect is a visual illusion which is the result of one block after another flipping over. Its name Jacob's Ladder comes from the biblical ladder to heaven, mentioned in Genesis 28:12.
The earliest known review for the Jacob's Ladder is a 1889 Scientific American article which tells how it is built and works.[1] Despite urban myths prevalent on the internet, there is no known documentation dating it to King Tut's tomb or ancient Egypt[2] or to the Pilgrims. It has been theorized that its origin is from a Chinese falling-block toy, called "Chinese blocks".[3]
The Japanese polymath Hiraga Gennai 平賀源内 (1729-1779) constructed a Jacob's ladder which later came to be called "Gennai's Wondrous Click-clack" (Gennai no fushigina katakata 源内の不思議なカタカタ).
Arrangement of interlaced ribbons which allow each block to act as if hinged to the next one at either of its two ends. The same mechanism is used in the 1980s toy Rubik's Magic but with plastic strings run diagonally across squares, with the result that the squares can hinge along either of two adjacent sides.