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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Janet,
why would an architect give you anything for finding a headless cat in his bed (unless he's a Vietnamese architect who eats pussy)?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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What? Dogs don't have 'em?
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thedogfather
Trad climber
Midwest
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Here is one Cat unit of measure
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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I know. Just having fun. Actually just watched it after "Al Neri" died last month.
What was the name of the $600,000 stallion that never got put to stud?
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Holy crap!
A dog really WAS the father.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 3, 2006 - 10:12pm PT
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OK. yo was so close to a really fine answer it is killing me. But I do not want to steal a good answer that somebody might still be working on.
So here is a hint. It involves a dead cat, long string, a scale for weighing the cat and a stop watch. But nothing with which to measure the string. (No measuring the string in catlengths.)
There is also another method involving just a single cat and some toothpicks. But there are times when it is more accurate than others.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Actually the woman holding it is 26" tall.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Raj,
you don't know diddley about "matured".
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Janet,
that bit with Khartoum's head was brilliance on Puzo's part. You're never told how it was done which makes it twice as terrifying.
My favorite bit from Puzo was the line, "I've got a stone in my shoe."
Wasn't used in the films until #3, but then used twice.
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ThomasKeefer
Trad climber
Monterey, CA
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Trad..
-Your method.. wether you are using a focalt pendulum solution or something similar will require a stop watch.. that is a useless piece of gear that can only induce problems.
-The angle of repose method is no good since you need to know what the angle of repose for a pile of cats is. The angle of repose is when the normal force vector due to gravity exceeds the cohesive force of the cats (essentially the "friction" between them). Please note that this is not actually friction
-To use my method.. if you have a dead cat then you are likely a chick so you must have a pocket mirror of some sort...
Since you want the specifics of how to do this, I will provide them. Walk, with the building at your back, approximately 50ft away. The further you walk, the more space you will need but the more accurate your results will be due to minimizing you for and aft movement from straight vertical when you are standing there. Bend over, with the building still at your back and the dead cat still in your other hand, and place the mirror on the ground. Do a turn about and be facing the building with the mirror at your feet. Keep walking backwards and watching all the pretty clouds in the mirror and eventually you will see the top of the building. STOP, and drop the dead cat. Now, if you know the length of the cat, roll it end over end to the mirror and multiply the number of turns by the length of the cat. Use the cat to then, by rolling it up your body, measure the distance to your eye level. Divide your height of eye by the distance from the mark to the mirror.. remember this number. At this point your have the tangent of the angle your eye made with the mirror (the angle of reflection) but that actual angle is of no consequence since Snell's law tells you that incidence and reflection are the same. No measure, via the rolling cat trick, the distance from the mirror to the base of the building.. Multiply that distance by the number you memorized and walla, you have the height of the building.
If you have live cats and wish to throw them off the building, you can use a doppler analysis of the change in pitch of the whale of their voice as they zoom by and extrapolate the distance fallen that way.. That is how the cops used to get you with the old shcool radar guns.
-Whatever you do, dont use the technique for measurement that Moyner and Fiedelman used in their sierra classics book since you will likely be off by an order of magnitude.
-If you think you have a better method.. does it rely on simplification or assumption that is only valid in the ideal vaccum case?
TOm
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Loom
climber
167 stinking feet above sea level : (
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Fewer cats may make a more elegant solution to building height, but this is the felinal solution.
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WoodyS
Trad climber
Riverside
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I found the Siamese reading this thread, so I'm afraid it's too late. They've already left the house and are on their way. I wish I could have stopped them; I'm sorry; I didn't want this sort of thing to happen.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2006 - 06:17am PT
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Tom, Your mirror solution is one of the best. The only assumption required was level ground. There was no need to explain further, though adding the source of the mirror was a nice touch.
Janet, apparently your prize is on its way. And the "no stopwatch involved" is for the method that requires only a single cat and toothpicks. This one would be ideal for you since it involves teeth and no physics.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2006 - 08:36am PT
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Janet, Glad your prize made it. BTW. Only two toothpicks are necessary. Maybe even only one. So we do not need to stick thousands of toothpicks in the cat and carry them up the stairs measuring the height of the building in toothpicks.
BTW. Since you're a dental professional, I suspect you already know in which US state the toothbrush was invented.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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See, there is ONE advantage of living in St. Louis - an angry mob Siamese won't come HERE - even to exact revenge. But my doors are locked, just in case.
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thedogfather
Trad climber
Midwest
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radical
You win, hands down. Only suggestion would be to use cloning so you could get exact copies and then just find the exact time it takes for a kitten to reach six inches. Once you have that info you shouldn't have to measure each one, just know the date each litter reaches "maturity".
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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Ah! I have hit on a simple solution. Take one cat to top of building. Strap GPS device on back of cat. Turn on function to record elevation and change in elevation. Hold cat over edge. Drop cat. SPLAT. Trot down the stairs, and voila, the exact height of the building will be on the read out. That and additional bonus information like time, temperature, and lat and longitude of the location of the building.
Magnificent.
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ThomasKeefer
Trad climber
Monterey, CA
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Gps.. Good idea.. but then you will likely lose the sattelite cluster (or part of it) by being in the shadow of the building. You would need 4 sattelits and that will be hard..
Good try though...
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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Damn. I forgot about the signal issue.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 4, 2006 - 11:51am PT
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Crimper, The GPS should show altitude. So you would need the difference between the reading at the top and the reading at the bottom (if the display is still working).
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