I get the vague feeling you know something about this, Doug...

Not really... I like novels about submarines ("Run Silent, Run Deep" has to be the all time classic) but mostly I am cursed by an overly analytical temperament. If I read a sci-fi novel, and the heroes go to the moon at a continuous acceleration of .7G, I have to stop reading and work out the math to see if the author got it right (4.2 hours assuming zero velocity when they arrive). Watching a movie where the bad guy takes off in his car, tires squealing on a dirt road makes me crazy. And when I see claims involving numbers, particularly numbers that have to correlate with other numbers, I can't rest until I check them out. A little Newtonian physics, a bit of knowledge about drag and power from my flying days, and a bit of common sense, and suddenly things don't add up so well.

One of my all time favorites is the pirate move, where the pirates pick up the chest full of gold bars and load it in their dinghy and row across the bay. Well, if the chest were three feet by two feet by two feet (12 cubic feet) it would weigh... let's see, 3*2*2*(1728/231)*167 pounds, or close enough to 15,000 pounds (about 6800 kilograms) as not to matter. About $45 million worth at modern prices.

Now, I challenge anyone to figure out what "3*2*2*(1728/231)*167" is all about!

It's a good thing we never get off topic on these threads, isn't it.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"