The NOVA mini-series The Elegant Universe, watch all three one hour episodes here, divided into chapters, available in the QuickTime or RealPlayer plug-ins.
What kind of power would you need to overcome this obstacle? Why is this such a difficult thing to do? Well, a ninja trying to climb this ladder not only has to do something like a pull-up (no easy feat) he has to end the pull-up with enough vertical velocity so that he can be “airborne” long enough for him to move the bar to the next level. Really, this is the part that makes it tough and this is the part that I want to calculate the power for. Let’s go.