Calculating the Maximum Velocity of a Sheep in a Vacuum

[Evo]

Rather than resurrect the old thread, I am re-posting. This article always brings tears to my eyes and is such a gem, it would be a shame for new members to miss it.

Posted in Science, 24th August 2007 15:06 GMT

Area

The standard unit of area shall be the nanoWales, defined as 1nWa, representing 0.0000207km2 or 20.78m2, 5.195 Thai talang wah or 28.99 Old Spanish square vara. The microWales, milliWales and Wales (Wa) are, naturally, accepted multiples of the base nanoWales.

Football pitch = 194.89nWa
Wales = 1,000,000,000nWa
Belgium = 1.47Wa
Democratic Republic of Congo = 113.3Wa
Known universe (rolled out flat) = 19468502x1012x10256Wa

Example:
The eruption of Vesuvius took out an area of 13 milliWales, although the effects of the blast were felt up to a thousand brontosauruses away. Survivors reported rocks and pumice the size of Bulgarian airbags falling from the sky for three days before the tragedy, and experts have calculated the total debris would fill around 120,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Of course, you will need to read the preceding page to get the measurements used. Ok, since many of you will never actualy read the article, here are the measurements.

Volume

The base unit of volume shall be the EU standard (5cm radius) grapefruit, defined as 1gf, representing 523.6cc, 4.426 US gills, 0.0144 UK bushels, 0.5236 Chinese Imperial sheng, or 0.9625 Ancient Roman sextaria.

For volumes lesser or greater than 1gf, the following should be used:

Walnut = 0.16gf
Chicken's egg = 0.35gf
Bulgarian airbag (C-cup Posh Spice - allegedly) = 1.1gf
Bulgarian funbag (DD-cup Jordan) = 3.27gf
Football = 11.07gf
Olympic-sized swimming pool = 4,780,114gf
Known universe = 117,456,206x104925gf

Length

The standard unit of length shall be the EU standard (Florentine) linguine (unboiled at sea level), defined as 1lg, representing 14cm, 0.02784 perches, 0.462 Japanese shyaku or 0.0007568 Ancient Greek stadium ptolemys

For greater than 1lg, the following should be used:

Double-decker bus = 65.85lg
Brontosaurus = 15 double-decker buses laid bumper-to-bumper
Length across known universe at shortest point = 136 trillion brontosauruses laid nose-to-tail

The main part is, of course "Velocity of sheep in a vacuum"

In a recent piece on red-giant star Mira, we rather foolishly suggested that the "comet-tailed" body was traveling across the heavens at roughly 150,000 times the speed of the average sheep.

This rash assertion provoked many readers to demand the maximum velocity of a sheep and, more to the point, the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum

The theoretical maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum is expressed in sheepsecs (Ssx), calculated as follows:

Speed of light (c) divided by wooldrag (Wd) + Welshmen (Wm), where wooldrag is a species-defined drag coefficient determined by the length and pliability of the fleece and Welshmen is the number of locals who have turned up in their wellies, and are hanging on for dear life.

Wooldrags have recently been calculated by researchers at CERN, and the latest experiments shed some light on the phenomenon, but it is still mysterious. The effect is similar to friction here on Earth, but is due to the interaction of the wool and fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. Researchers have applied to the EU for further funding, but it has been put on hold as a result of the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

For example, an unshorn Welsh Mountain Badger Face, with a wooldrag of 67, chased by three Welshmen will ultimately attain a Ssx of c/(67+3), or 4,282.74 km/sec.

Alternatively, a newly-clipped Finnish Landrace, with a wooldrag of 23, worried by just one Welshman has a theoretical Ssx of c/(23+1), or 12,491 km/sec.

Clearly, the difference in these two results means that a compromise standard is required. The El Reg Ssx uses the classic Cheviot as its sheep of choice, with a wooldrag of 50. Wm is in this case 0, since everyone knows that Welshmen do not in fact have intimate relations with sheep and any reference to the same is just a cheap attempt to drum up laughs.

The Vulture Central standard velocity for a sheep in a vacuum is, therefore, c/(50+0), or 5,995 km/sec.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/

 

[turbo]

Dang! What's with all this km/sec crap? Can't we have more understandable units of velocity, like furlongs per fortnight? I hate the metric system.

 

[Evo]

Dang! What's with all this km/sec crap? Can't we have more understandable units of velocity, like furlongs per fortnight? I hate the metric system.

 

[wolram]

Heck this almost made me laugh, but then i remembered how many times i had taken a gnats cock off a shaft to get the correct fit.
Then there is doctoring, doctoring can be adding/ subtracting material or changing its shape, but you do not have to go to a doctor to get a gnats cock taken off or to get your shaft to fit.

 

[Evo]

Time for a bump.

 

[turbo]

Can we assume the sheep to be spherical and of uniform density? If so, I'll pose an Atwood machine problem post-haste.

 

[JaredJames]

Wow, being Welsh I should be offended.

No matter where it is or what the occasion, the moment sheep are brought up the Welsh jokes follow (and vice versa).

Like I said, should be offended, but I've spent 4 years in England now so it's starting to become part of my daily routine to hear at least one sheep joke.

 

[Evo]

Wow, being Welsh I should be offended.

No matter where it is or what the occasion, the moment sheep are brought up the Welsh jokes follow (and vice versa).

Like I said, should be offended, but I've spent 4 years in England now so it's starting to become part of my daily routine to hear at least one sheep joke.

awww, sowwy jared. I forgot your were Welsh. At least you have crossed over Offa's Dyke!

 

[JaredJames]

If it wasn't for Google, I wouldn't have a clue what that was.

Sadly, I don't think I've ever been that high. All of my crossing's into England occur on the Seven Bridge (new one) and so I don't get high enough to 'cross' it. Perhaps brush past is a better way to put it.

Interesting from the Wiki article though:

It was customary for the English to cut off the ears of every Welshman who was found to the east of the dyke, and for the Welsh to hang every Englishman whom they found to the west of it.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Wow, being Welsh I should be offended.

No matter where it is or what the occasion, the moment sheep are brought up the Welsh jokes follow (and vice versa).

Like I said, should be offended, but I've spent 4 years in England now so it's starting to become part of my daily routine to hear at least one sheep joke.

No... sometimes the sheep jokes are about Kiwis!

(I grew up in Wales myself, but living in the US no one knows enough about it to make sheep jokes.)

 

[Proton Soup]

and yet we still use derived units like angstroms

 

[Borek]

I have a new proposal.

1 Pj = 1 mlj = 1μj, that is 1 Polish joke is 1 millilamejoke and 1 microjoke.

Killer joke would be measured in Mj.

 

[nobahar]

"And the size of Wales in cubic furlongs?
This is a tricky one. The political debate behind it is long and uninteresting, so we will skip it...

...This means everything below ground (coal) is English, while the Welsh can retain their cherished national symbol, the leek."

I laughed so much. But I agree, Welsh and sheep jokes, getting tiring...!

 

[Office_Shredder]

I have a new proposal.

1 Pj = 1 mlj = 1μj, that is 1 Polish joke is 1 millilamejoke and 1 microjoke.

Killer joke would be measured in Mj.

Surely a killer joke is a kilojoke

 

[lisab]

Surely a killer joke is a kilojoke

Right, which would make a mega joke a k-kilojoke.

 

[Andre]

How many guffaws are there in 1 Pj? and can you convert that to chachinnates?

 

[Borek]

You can't convert between joke and laugh, just like you can't convert between heat and temperature.

Basically laugh = joke * humor sense, or laugh = joke / humor resistance (which yields conclusion that humor sense * humor resistance = constant).

 

[lowing99]

awww, sowwy jared. I forgot your were Welsh. At least you have crossed over Offa's Dyke!

Hi

It's a question of geography, if you move to Scotland, you will not hear jokes at the expense of the Welsh, as every Scot knows it's Aberdonians who are the most guilty of sheep abuse.

Best

Colin

 

[Chi Meson]

You can't convert between joke and laugh, just like you can't convert between heat and temperature.

Basically laugh = joke * humor sense, or laugh = joke / humor resistance (which yields conclusion that humor sense * humor resistance = constant).

That's why the specific humor capacity for a person is measured in megachuckles per/kilojoke.

The rate at which humor is transferred, or Izzard, is the kilojoke per second. The threshold of pain for a normal person is approximately one kilochuckle per second, so anyone attending a comic routine rated at one Izzard (1.0 Iz) better have a capacity below 1.0 MCh/kJ, or they're in for a rough night.

 

[JaredJames]

Hi

It's a question of geography, if you move to Scotland, you will not hear jokes at the expense of the Welsh, as every Scot knows it's Aberdonians who are the most guilty of sheep abuse.

Best

Colin

You have to know the history of why the welsh are considered so. It's not simply because people felt like making jokes.

 

[mugaliens]

Right, which would make a mega joke a k-kilojoke.

I thought it was called a Lenojoke.

 

[BobG]

...since everyone knows that Welshmen do not in fact have intimate relations with sheep...

Interesting story behind this. This myth originated from an incident in Canada blamed on the person being of Welsh descent. The myth was burst when all of the Canadians not having sex with sheep turned out to be illegal Mexican aliens.

 

[JaredJames]

I'm not sure how true this is, but here's the story behind the Welsh:

Under English law, the penalty for stealing a sheep was worse than s******* one. So when caught stealing sheep from the English, the Welsh would claim to be planning to sleep with it to avoid the penalty for theft.

 

[FlexGunship]

That's why the specific humor capacity for a person is measured in megachuckles per/kilojoke.

The rate at which humor is transferred, or Izzard, is the kilojoke per second. The threshold of pain for a normal person is approximately one kilochuckle per second, so anyone attending a comic routine rated at one Izzard (1.0 Iz) better have a capacity below 1.0 MCh/kJ, or they're in for a rough night.

Hmm... I got a divide by zero on that one. WolframAlpha doesn't recognize those units.

Don't feel bad though, no one remembers the gigatoastie (or ^{gigawatt-hours}/_{human life}).

Edited for formatting.

 

[Redbelly98]

Area
.
.
.
Wales = 1,000,000,000nWa

You'd think the area of Wales would be known to better precision than just 1 significant figure.

 

[JaredJames]

You'd think the area of Wales would be known to better precision than just 1 significant figure.

Well the EU left Wales completely off the map once, followed shortly by them leaving the entire UK off the map.

Think they're trying to tell us something?

 

[BobG]

You'd think the area of Wales would be known to better precision than just 1 significant figure.