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Author Topic: The Insane Physics Thread.  (Read 16747 times)

MonkeyHead

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The Insane Physics Thread.
« on: January 12, 2014, 03:54:50 am »

Hey, man,

As resident mad physicist, would you be willing to set up a "Mad Physics" thread? A thread full of awesome stuff like punching t-rexes and firing people from railcannons into the sun would be awesome^3.

Why, yes, it could be awesome...

So, inspired in part by a happy thread discussion about http://what-if.xkcd.com/ and in part by MZ requesting to know how hard he would need to punch a T-Rex to score a KO, I have been asked to start this thread. I suppose its point is for people to ask each other mad questions in the style of "What If?", where we then do our best to answer them, applying whatever knowledge we have (and with this being Bay12, there is a lot of crazy knowledge out there) or can find out there on the internet - a bit like the Maths help thread, but with the saftey catch set to "off". So if you ever wanted to know how many hippos it would take to make a meat based tower to the moon, this is the place to ask. Ladies and Gentlemen, let the insanity commence...
« Last Edit: January 12, 2014, 03:59:55 am by MonkeyHead »
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10ebbor10

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2014, 04:15:04 am »

Posting to watch.
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LordSlowpoke

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2014, 06:03:51 am »

eh? i've done these before. they don't take much effort if you have any idea of what is transpiring. which you can get with the use of google.

still, you're taking questions

what does it mean to hold a citrus fruit?
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MonkeyHead

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2014, 06:05:46 am »

what does it mean to hold a citrus fruit?

I am not sure I.... what?

Helgoland

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2014, 07:14:39 am »

LordSlowpoke, resident dadaist?
One day, I shall remove you from you throne...
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sjm9876

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2014, 08:56:31 am »

how many hippos it would take to make a meat based tower to the moon
because why not.

Spoiler: My answer (click to show/hide)

Question: What is the terminal velocity of a falling hippo, and what effect would this have on landing?
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Skyrunner

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2014, 09:03:19 am »

ptw! I once did some calculations on how hard you'll have to shove the Moon instantaneously to make it deorbit, creatively misapplying Hohmann's transfer equations. It was awesome!
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Il Palazzo

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2014, 09:21:18 am »

what does it mean to hold a citrus fruit?
No, no. It's insane physics, you see. There's an "s" in it.
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Sheb

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2014, 09:54:54 am »

Question: What is the terminal velocity of a falling hippo, and what effect would this have on landing?

For terminal velocity I used this handy calculator. Now, mass is straightforward (1550 kg). For cross-section, assuming a density of roughly 1 (this number is lower than yours because you don't include lung volume.), we get a volume of 1.55 m³. With a length of 4 m (hippos are 3.3 to 5 m long, so this is probably average), we get a frontal cross-section of 0.3875 m³.

Now, drag coefficient. For some reasons I don't understand, no one ever bothered to put an hippo in a wind tunnel to get some good data on it. Now, a smooth cylinder has a drag coefficient of about 0.8, a human being falling flat on his face of about 1 to 1.3. I'm going to go with one here, since an hippo got less dangly bits than a human. This give us a terminal velocity of around 228 m/s or 820 km/h.

As for the result, it's hard to tell exactly. "A very fine hippo paste" would be my best guess, but if you want a better idea, we can calculate the energy released upon shock and express it into Kg of TNT (because everything is cooler when you use explosives as units.) 1550kg*228²= 80 MJ, or 19,26 kg of TNT.
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MaximumZero

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2014, 10:13:44 am »

Yes! Let the awesome commence!
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Remuthra

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2014, 10:17:17 am »

P=t^w

And, since it will come up eventually, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Sheb

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2014, 10:17:54 am »

I guess I should ask a question in turn.

How effective would it be to replace the currents ammunition used by the USAF with hippo-drop? What would be the payload a US carrier group could quickly deliver? How many hippos would you need to significantly degrade Assad's air force?
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MaximumZero

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2014, 10:19:28 am »

P=t^w

And, since it will come up eventually, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
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Remuthra

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2014, 10:25:00 am »

P=t^w

And, since it will come up eventually, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
I don't know.

scriver

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Re: The Insane Physics Thread.
« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2014, 12:03:36 pm »

Can hypercube into space?
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