Newton's third law/badgers/Metro

In the Metro today, someone asks (page 17):

“How many badgers would it take to support the Empire State Building?”.

The answer given is:

“The Empire State Building weights 331,818 tonnes. The average weight of an adult European badger is 11kg. So, according to Newton’s third law, you would need 30,102,040 badgers”.

Now, I am not a scientist, but this seems unsatisfactory. It seems to me that all they have done there is answer the question “how many badgers does it take to equal the weight of the Empire State Building”? Why is Newton’s law applicable?

The answer to the question actually posed depends upon what you mean by “support”. If you mean you mean “act as a foundation for”, it seems to me that the issue is one of strength (principally seperable here into compressive, tensile and sheer strength, depending upon where the load forces are applied), not weight. Badgers’ propensity to break/be squashed under load means they are insufficient to support a large building, however many badgers you have got, unless the weight of the building is spread out over a very large surface area (on the same principle that means that an elephant’s foot does not sink into a muddy field where a stiletto heel would, despite the elephant’s weight). So you need to look at the weight–bearing strength of one badger before it will squash or break (say, 50kg?) to see how many badgers you will need (6.6million?), then make sure that the weight of the building is applied down through a cross–sectional surface area sufficient to contain that number of badgers in load–bearing formation (say, roughly 825,000m², assuming 0.125m² per badger (based upon a length of about half a metre and a width of about half of that again for one badger in a load–bearing stance)). So you don’t need as many badgers as the Metro suggests, but the value of the real estate that would be necessary would be substantial, particularly given land values in Manhattan.

No doubt one of you fiendishly clever lot will tell me why I am wrong about all this.

Alternatively, we could look at the issue economically. The Empire State cost some $41m to build. To amass that amount of money (£22m) from badgers, one could go into the business of selling badger pelts to the traditional shaving brush industry. At an average profit of, I dunno, £2.50 per pelt, one could say that 8,800,000 badgers would be required to have supported the construction costs of the Empire State. One could also look at the question of support based upon current annual running costs for the Empire State, giving a smaller number of badgers but on an annualised basis.

Labels: economics, news, science

165mph for £3,500

Anyone want a Kawasaki ZX6R? Mine is for sale.

Speaking of causing offence, here are some excellent insults.

Fair play to Jack Straw and Ruth Kelly

I am afraid I am going to have to court political and religious controversy again. After Jack Straw and his comments about the veil — with which I am confident that a majority of people in this country are entirely in agreement — now Ruth Kelly is getting it in the neck from various “Muslim groups” for her comments that in future, the government will be inclined to direct British government funding more towards the Muslim organisations which oppose those who want to blow British citizens up, rather than those who support such people.

As usual, the government is bending over backwards to be inclusive and not to offend anyone who is remotely rational or reasonable. From Ruth Kelly’s speech:

“And all of this needs to be grounded in a set of non–negotiable values. They belong to us all. They are found in Islam as much as in Christian, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish and other traditions: respect for the law; freedom of speech; equality of opportunity; respect for others and responsibility towards others”.

Ruth Kelly has been unnecessarily generous to certain people in that statement. There is no evidence that the “Islam” followed by those from whom it is proposed that funding be withheld has a place for any of those values. The extremists have no respect for English law, consistently oppose freedom of speech, believe in the subordination of women, have no respect for others whose beliefs and values differ from their own and accept none of the responsibilities that come with the right to reside in this country. And if you are totally opposed to the basic values held by the large majority of people in this country — values which I believe to be right on an a priori basis in any event — please explain to me why I should give a toss about how offended you are at the suggestion that my government is to cease to fund your organisations with my hard–earned taxes?

Running

Ran the the Nike Run London 10k in Hyde Park. My official time was exactly 42 minutes, knocking a whole two seconds off from the last time I did the Run London two years ago. So I can honestly say, in the words of Furious Styles, I’m not getting older, I’m getting better, at least when it comes to running 10ks. Would have liked to go a bit quicker (having posted a comfortable 41:19 in training a few weeks ago in the Sardinian heat without killing myself), but got stuck at the back in impassable crowds, thanks to waiting for nickyg who I had been led to believe was in the john but who, load already lightened, had apparently skipped up the front to wait for the gun and continue his obsessive stalking of Paula Radcliffe.

Madrid

In Madrid last weekend. Civilized place. It’s nice to be able to get good, freshly cooked food with your beer just about everywhere, rather than just in the poncy, pricey gastro pub type venues. Would take me a while to get used to the late–night culture in Spain, mind you.