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Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical questions


DAL59

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37 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

More seating...

Have you seen the loge box view of the pond in central park??  

191-12-manhattan-04.jpg

 

But seriously, a recently deceased member of the Model Boat Yacht Club I'm in used to travel to Central Park a couple times a year to take part in Remote controlled recreations of famous naval battles.   The RC were all scale models of actual warships, usually ships of the line, with the only propulsion generated by the wind (ie they actually sailed, no motors), with functioning cannons they would shoot at each other. 

But to flood a stadium, say an American football stadium, in order to host small sailing boat (like a Laser or FJ) would be fairly trivial.   Just turn it into a huge above ground pool.  Supported walls, and a liner covering the whole thing.  The water would only have to be slightly deeper than the boats draft.    The downside would be wind.  I've raced in similarly sunken/sheltered ponds, and the wind is not steady, gusting and shifting constantly.  Takes a lot of skill and a keen eye to read the wind shifts.  

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On 2/11/2019 at 6:26 PM, DAL59 said:

How hard and expensive would it be to fill a football stadium with water and have a ship battle?  

A quick glance through wikipedia says the Colliseum definitely lost the ability to stage naval combat when it got a huge basement. The innards of football fields are just as elaborate.

So you’d be looking at a major rebuild.

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36 minutes ago, DDE said:

A quick glance through wikipedia says the Colliseum definitely lost the ability to stage naval combat when it got a huge basement.

That's sad. We should design the future stadiums having in mind both gladiators and naumachia.

Spoiler

And Robot Jox as well. They probably match the constraints of a proper lake battle.

maxresdefault.jpg

 

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On 2/11/2019 at 9:37 PM, Gargamel said:

But to flood a stadium, say an American football stadium, in order to host small sailing boat (like a Laser or FJ) would be fairly trivial.   Just turn it into a huge above ground pool.  Supported walls, and a liner covering the whole thing.  The water would only have to be slightly deeper than the boats draft.    The downside would be wind.  I've raced in similarly sunken/sheltered ponds, and the wind is not steady, gusting and shifting constantly.  Takes a lot of skill and a keen eye to read the wind shifts.  

Doesn't the NHL play hockey in such stadia?  Of course, they hardly want a deep pond, and take the extra step of freezing it.

On 2/11/2019 at 9:40 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

Well no, I haven't Looks like luxury box seating for the senators...

I suspect that plenty of people who live there expect senators to answer to them.

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7 hours ago, Nivee~ said:

What's the latent heat of fusion for anhydrous air??

From "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" Ed.62, 1981-82:

Hf (Nitrogen) - 6.15cal/g

Hf (Oxygen) - 3.3cal/g

calorie = 4.186J

 

So Hf (air) would be roughly equal to 0.8(6.15) + 0.2(3.3) = 5.58cal/g = 23.36J/g

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9 hours ago, wumpus said:

Doesn't the NHL play hockey in such stadia?  Of course, they hardly want a deep pond, and take the extra step of freezing it.

But there's a fairly big difference in the structure required to keep 4 inches of ice in place, and 6 feet of water...   If you have a leak in the ice, you only need to plug it until it won't fit through the hole anymore. 

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If there was a cave made of potatoes, what enzyme could I spray that would dissolve the potatoes and

a) Not cause a fire

b) Allow me to dig a tunnel wide enough to go through at a hundred feet a day

c) Be easy to store

 

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3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

If there was a cave made of potatoes, what enzyme could I spray that would dissolve the potatoes and

a) Not cause a fire

b) Allow me to dig a tunnel wide enough to go through at a hundred feet a day

c) Be easy to store

Ketchup. You'll eat your way through the wall.

 

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3 hours ago, DDE said:

How much armour penetration and beyond-armour effect could a thoroughly modern, dedicated war hammer have?

9E9845585690FA134733BBF9D1D39FDFAF1D9BFB

Against body armor probably lot but also pretty overkill. Body armor is all or nothing, you try to protect the head and torso as good as possible. No armor outside of work cloth quality clothing other places. 

War hammers was only in use then full plate armor was as popular. Going forward and armor also started to go more all or nothing rather than full plate because of firearms, that made swords again work much better. 

And that above is an slege.
Warhammer-r-nagel.jpg
This is an warhammer, granted an two handed one was larger but head was less than twice as heavy.

Edited by magnemoe
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Modern ceramic armour plates can stop a 7.62 round at short range (google Stephen Tschiderer).  A NATO 7.62 round leaves the muzzle with a about 3.5kJ of energy.  Google suggests real war hammers weighed around 4lbs, so assuming 2kg, you'd need to swing it at about 94 mph to hit with the same energy as a point blank 7.62.

Apparently an average golfer can hit the ball with the club head doing around 90mph, while a pro can get up to 125mph.  Given that a hammer's presumably going to have a shorter handle than a golf club, and be at least 4 or 5 times the weight, I'd have thought it unlikely anyone could swing one at 94mph. 

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26 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

... unlikely anyone could swing one at 94mph. 

Most certainly not. That is in the range of a slow flying arrow to stay with the late medieval connotation.

The "Streithammer" is a late medieval/early modern weapon that was meant to deform the armor (helmets had to fit closely and were lined with leather or they would dangle around the head) or to use the pointed side to poke through the soft parts at the joints in close combat or use as a lever. It is not the sole weapon, it would be useless against a long pointed sword ("Panzerbrecher", "Sempachschwert") because of slow speed (swing against thrust) or a halberd (lack of range).

All of these weapons would be pretty useless in modern times, except for sports or reenactment. Today people kill each other with drones, rockets, bombs, bullets, radioactivity, etc. pp.

Edited by Green Baron
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