The Questions not worth their own thread thread VII

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Let's see.

Let's say a woman - Jane - weighs 180 pounds (she's been hitting the ice cream a lot). Her stiletto heels each touch the ground in two places, for a total of four. Let's say the front part is 3 inches by 2 inches, and stiletto is half a square inch (we're estimating here). That's a total of 6.5 square inches a foot, or 13 inches square touching the ground. That's an average of 13.84 pounds per square inch of pressure.

Now for the elephant, Janette. We'll try and cut this as close as possible, and say that she's an Asian elephant, which according to Wiki, weigh between 6,500–11,000 pounds. Let's say 6500 pounds is accurate, again, to make this as close as possible (I'm rigging the results as much as I can, because it'd be too easy if we chose a giant bull African elephant ;)) An Asian elephants foot is pretty big, and for the sake of argument, let's say it's perfectly circular, and roughly 1 foot across. That gives us a radius of six inches, and an area of 113.09 inches per foot. And an elephant has 4 feet, so that's a total of 452.38 inches. That comes out to 14.36 pounds per square inch.

Which is actually pretty close. But again, we kind of rigged the results - we chose a light elephant, and a heavy woman. If the woman weighed 120 pounds, the average would be something like 9.23 lbs/foot. And if the elephant was a bit bigger (even for an Asian elephant, still) at around 10000 lbs, the average would be something like 22.10 pounds per inch, over twice as much. (Although I suppose we could compensate by saying the bigger elephant has a bigger foot...giving him an extra inch around the foot, that'd still be 18.84 pounds per square inch)

In short: it's plausible, but you kind of have to cheat a little with the numbers to make it work. (Or feed all the elephant's food to the woman, to decrease his weight and increase hers ;))

Hopefully I didn't just make a fool out of myself by messing up basic algebra....
Elro, you're missing something important here (I'm presuming you didn't do a math error), on stilettos the weight distribution isn't equally distributed on the shoe. A woman in stilettos has many moments where she has most of her weight on the back.
 
Elro, you're missing something important here (I'm presuming you didn't do a math error), on stilettos the weight distribution isn't equally distributed on the shoe. A woman in stilettos has many moments where she has most of her weight on the back.
I think my math is OK, since it's all very basic stuff. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if I made a mistake or two. That's the reason I could never be a mathematician - I do 95% of the stuff right, and then make one tiny mistake making it all wrong :lol:)

I suppose you're right, it may not be fair to simply say that the weight is evenly distributed (And to only calculate them standing still, rather than temporarily on one foot, like while walking). But that also applies to the elephant - when elephants walk, one or two of their feet is lifted off the ground, resulting in more pressure for the remaining feet. And according to Wiki, when elephants start "running," they can have only one foot on the ground at a time. (Although apparently it's not technically running, since all their feet don't leave the ground at the same time) Assuming the last values that I used are correct - 13 inches across, 10000 lbs - that gives us 75.37 pounds per square inch, when they're on one foot. With the 120 lb woman on one foot, we still only have 18.6 pounds per square inch. (But yes, that is assuming an equal weight distribution - it's just pounds/inches, nothing fancy)

If we reduce this still further - say, she's just balancing on the stiletto - it changes, of course. Let's say that the stiletto is half an inch across, and perfectly round. (Another assumption, but I don't know how else to do this) That would give us a radius of .25 inches, for an area of .196 inches square, which 611.46 pounds per square inch for a 120 pound woman - obviously a lot more than the elephant. (Assuming I'm doing my math right - if anyone wants to double check, feel free)

But I don't think it works that way. Perhaps I'm simply inexperienced with women wearing high heels (If anyone has more, you can jump in at any time ;) ) but my impression is that they are relatively fragile, and that you never just have one stiletto supporting you at any given time. By the time you life up the ball of your left foot, the ball as well as the stiletto of your right foot is firmly on the ground. Even when walking, it seems like most of the woman's weight is on the front, because the back just simply can't hold that much pressure. (Which is why running in high heels doesn't work - even though you don't land on your heels, the force is still too much)

I have a vague idea that you could probably do this, even so, by assigning a percentage to how much weight is being distributed on each point (heel and front) and then work from there - at least, I don't see why that wouldn't work - and then seeing what percentage of weight she needs on her stilettos to surpass the elephants 75.37 average pounds per square inch. But I'm tired and feeling a little lazy, so I'll leave this already horribly long post alone, and maybe I'll finish tomorrow. ;)
 
Stilettos are generally metal reinforced, (metal being strong!) the reason you don't run in them is because your apt to hurt yourself not the shoe. So, if we're talking about the case where a woman leans back on the heel of both of her feet we're going to see some pretty high pressures.
 
Sometimes on the telly-vision I see someone put on a mock German accent and say something that sounds like 'Cooler, eight weeks' or some other length of time. What is this a reference to?
 
Is it possible for NYC to suffer a direct hit from a hurricane Cat 3 or greater?

Yes. It's a coastal city. However I don't recall ever hearing about it taking a hit from a hurricane. So it's probably very unlikely. Storms that run north up the US coast tend to curve to the east as they get north. So Long Island and points east are more likely.
 
Sometimes on the telly-vision I see someone put on a mock German accent and say something that sounds like 'Cooler, eight weeks' or some other length of time. What is this a reference to?

The Great Escape. Steve McQueen's character, the "Cooler King" has a habit of escaping, and getting caught, and whenever he is, he is taken to the commandant, who will give him a Cooler sentence... "Cooler, tventy days!"
It ebcoem a bitof a running joke.
 
Yes. It's a coastal city. However I don't recall ever hearing about it taking a hit from a hurricane. So it's probably very unlikely. Storms that run north up the US coast tend to curve to the east as they get north. So Long Island and points east are more likely.

Except that hurricanes that run up the US East coast sometimes turn NW into New York State and beyond. Check out Hurricane Hazel(cat 4) in 1954 which killed over 80 people in the Toronto area alone. I know because a huge tree crushed the corner of our house. (edited)
 
Well Bill is currently category 2 and there's no way he's gonna get stronger now. If Bill hits NYC he'll probably be a 1 or a very weak cat 2.
 
Well Bill is currently category 2 and there's no way he's gonna get stronger now. If Bill hits NYC he'll probably be a 1 or a very weak cat 2.

It's going straight to the Canadian coast, it won't touch the States.
 
I ask these two here because if I ask on a TPATH forum they'd probably respond with some form of disgust.

Does anybody know who the person in the video that's playing, I think harmonica, does anybody know who he is? I don't recognize him and he appeared out of nowhere and he wasn't introduced anywhere in the video (I have the entire thing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMXVQYQ6pKc

Also is it just me or is Tom making faces about 4:15?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u17C4h_MPM

Also, am I the only one who finds this terribly hilarious?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgFj8Dnvtfw

Thanks for answers
 
Sometimes on the telly-vision I see someone put on a mock German accent and say something that sounds like 'Cooler, eight weeks' or some other length of time. What is this a reference to?

Maybe you were thinking of the TV series Hogans Heros?
 
it's still there. i'm told that they upgraded it and it's nice than it used to be. i hate it and never go there. so dunno what it's like for sure.
 
Is it wrong for me to find Hurricane Bill funny since my first name is Bill?
 
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