Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
How much energy does it take to lift a squirrel on a solar sail? (xkcd.com)
9 points by iamelgringo on Feb 15, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments



Not much, I would say about a snickers worth. Heres how...

1. Eat Snickers. 2. Feel Satisfied 3. Unwrap Solar Sail. 4. Wrap Squirrel in Solar Sail into a soccer shaped ball. 5. Punt Squirrel. 6. Measure Distance. 7. Call and report your findings to PETA. 8. Eat another Snickers.


Well 1 snickers contains roughly 1.1 megajoules. Say the squirrel weighs roughly 250 grams - I've never had the compunction to capture and weigh one - which would mean it would take 2.45 joules of energy to lift it 1 meter against Earths gravity.

With the low end of human muscle efficiency in the conversion of energy into power. Ideally you'd be able to fire the little beastie ~63km off the energy of a snickers.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: