Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Mathematics of Balrogs

MMartinez at xenite discusses: How long did Gandalf and the Balrog fall?

  more discussion HERE
.Since Gandalf has a robe and not a wing suit, I'll say his terminal velocity is ~90mph or 132 ft/s. v=at so time to reach terminal velocity is t=v/a I'll cheat here and say his average acceleration is 1/2g or 17 ft/s/s so time to accelerate is 7.75s distance traveled in that time is at2 or 1021ft the rest of the 104 seconds is at terminal velocity, 132 ft/s so d=1021ft+132 ft/s*(104s-7.75s)=13726ft=2.6miles=4.2 miles which is certainly feasible.

another discussion (of the film) here.

and old essay from the Greenbook on balrogs...

the Tolkien professor has a podcast that insists Balrogs don't have wings because they usually are killed by making them fall....and points out that not only did the Balrog die in a fall but that in the Simarillion, Glorfindel killed a balrog that way too...

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related item: Skydiving without a parachute 

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