Elephantine configuration conundrum
READERS have been commenting on that unusual unit of pressure, the elephant standing on a Mini Cooper (ESOAMC). Doug Cross wrote that if, as UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph had suggested, the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean is 8000 ESOAMC, âthereâs only room for a single elephant to stand on the roof of a Mini, or indeed, on the back of another elephant. So they must all be in a single stack, 8000 elephants highâ. This would mean a stack 28 kilometres high (28 April).
It would be foolish to expect this to go unchallenged by Feedback readers, and it didnât. Mike Simpson reminds us that âthe gravitational force acting between two objects reduces as the distance between them increasesâ. He therefore assumes that the elephant on top of the stack would weigh less than the elephant on the bottom. So do these units require conversion to allow for the effect of the laws of gravity on the elephantine configuration? They probably do. But it has been a long day, and Feedback is not in the frame of mind to calculate how many actual elephants would achieve the same pressure as 8000 of the Telegraphâs gravity-naive elephants. Nor, indeed, whether any of the topmost elephants are likely to achieve orbit, rendering the conversion-to-reality of the units unachievable.
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Perhaps a more refreshed and skilled reader can help? Maybe not before breakfast, if you wish also to take into account the plight of the unfortunate elephants at the bottom of the stack.
Staying at a resort in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada, John Preece noticed a sign on the door to the patio saying âThis door does not openâ. âIs it still a door?â he wonders
MEANWHILE, elephants continue to pop up elsewhere as choice units of measurement. Tom Smith tells us that visitors to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai can read a notice saying that the building, claimed to be the worldâs tallest, weighs âmore than 100,000 elephantsâ.
Tim says that his family wondered if this was entirely appropriate, given that they failed to see any elephants nearby. There were plenty of camels, though, and they wondered what the equivalent of 100,000 elephants would be in camels. âPerhaps 300,000,â Tom suggests, âwhich might be even more impressiveâ.
They felt, however, that as the Burj Khalifa is a modern building, a more appropriate unit might be Ferraris, Maseratis or Lamborghinis. There were many more of each of these cars (âcruising the main beach road at 2-3 miles per hour, nose to tail, every evening until after midnightâ) than there were camels.
WE ASKED on 3 March for help explaining why San Benedetto mineral water has 0 milligrams of sodium per 250 millilitre, but 5.8 mg of sodium per litre.
âIt is easily explained,â says Peter OâByrne. âSodium ions are denser than water, so they sink to the bottom of the bottle. The top 250 ml of water in your 1 litre bottle therefore contains no sodium ions, but when you test the whole bottle, you get an answer of 5.8 mg per litre.
âOK? Do I get a prize?â       Â
As mad explanations go, this is top-notch, Peter, so thanks. Unfortunately our prize fund has sunk to the bottom of our pockets.
ON EBAY, Isabel Rodrigues found of âStunning Moroccan Echinoids â fossil sea urchins⊠brand-new, unused, unopened and undamagedâ.
Thinking a brand-new fossil â probably from the Cretaceous â for ÂŁ3.50 was a good deal, Isabel put in a bid for it.
READER Tony Nelson-Smith asks whether we noticed, in the Review section of UK paper The Observer on 29 April, âcochineal implantsâ listed among technological advances. Tony wonders if these are for people who yearn to have bright red ears.
We didnât notice, but The Observer did: in its 6 May âfor the recordâ feature it , saying, âThat should, of course, have been cochlear implants.â
RETURNING to the theme of units, Tom Middlebrook expresses dissatisfaction over a Vodafone advert on trolleys at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, Australia. They have a picture of a shark on them, along with the statement âThe great white shark weighs approx. 115 suitcasesâ.
âAre they full?â Tom demands to know. âHalf-full? Empty? Adult sharks? Average sharks?â
To this we would add: âAre they hungry sharks or full-up sharks?â Vodafone needs to do some more work on this.
FINALLY, reader Liz Krause thinks it could be tempting to upstage the neighboursâ garden gnome collection by taking up (German) Amazonâs in attack posture.
True, the price of a whopping âŹ24,771 is somewhat prohibitive, but the worldwide shipping cost of a mere âŹ5.90 that Liz tells us she was quoted makes the offer almost seem reasonable.
