Friday, May 03, 2013

Answering the really important questions of the day

From Wired:

How many people would work in the Death Star?

and

How much does the Enterprise weigh?

f this starship is floating and in equilibrium then there are two forces that must have the same magnitude – the gravitational force and the buoyancy force. Gravity, we already know how that works. On the surface of the Earth, this is just the mass of the object multiplied by the gravitational field – 9.8 N/kg. For the buoyancy force, I am not going to go over the derivation – but here is one I did before. Instead, I will just say the buoyancy force is the weight of the water displaced by the object. I can write this magnitude as:
Screenshot 4 29 13 7 48 pm
Here, the ρw is the density of the water. Sea water has a density of about 1030 kg/m3. The Vod is the volume of the object that displaces water – so the part underwater in this case.


I tried to watch the first Startrek remake while on the plane (Delta has nice TV screens for everyone and that was one of the films) but the plot was so illogical (or maybe I was too tired) that I turned it off.

The bad guys destroyed all the ships, but three guys could parachute and destroy the bad guy's black hole? WTF? And the very logical Spock decides to rescue his mom (risking the Enterprise and ignoring the other millions of Vulcans?) WTF again.

Yes, it has been on TV here, but Lolo dislikes sci fi and fantasy, so I either have to download it illegally or buy a pirated copy at the palenke for 70 pesos (a buck fifty)...never mind.

The new Startrek is getting hype and the latest trailer is on line: link

 but when Cumberbatch is shown in the previews with a long coat and with his coat collar up, a la "sherlock", one does wonder if he is being type cast...


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