We all have those thoughts, the ones that pertain to us in the small hours of the night. Who am I? Why are we here? What if my cellphone operated on vacuum tubes instead? Randall Munroe has the answer to, well, just one of those concerns, however also the answers to a whole bunch of others gathered together into What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Yes, that is a T-Rex eating a plane. In the excerpt listed below Munroe examines what it would require to transport a typical sized human in a chair over Australias highest high-rise building, using just the power of pigeons. Lots and great deals of pigeons..
Penguin Random House.
2 by Randall Munroe. Copyright © 2022 by Randall Munroe. Excerpted by approval of Riverhead, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
One 1965 research study measured a climb rate of 2.5 m/s for unencumbered pigeons, * so even if were being optimistic, it seems not likely that pigeons might lift your chair more than 5 meters. Because a pigeon can bring just a quarter of its body weight, it takes 4 flying pigeons to bring one resting pigeon. Raising one person might only take 600 pigeons, however raising one person and 600 resting pigeons would take another 3,000 pigeons.
At that point, the pigeons wouldnt be pulled down by the Earths gravity– the Earth would be pulled up by the pigeons gravity.
If each “stage” is two seconds, and pigeons are revitalized after 30 seconds, you might fly arbitrarily high with a 15-stage craft– however that would still need trillions of pigeons.
In a 2013 research study, researchers at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics led by Ting Liu trained pigeons to fly up to a perch while using a weighted harness. They discovered that the average pigeon in their study could take off and fly up while bring 124 grams, about 25 percent of its body weight.
The researchers identified that the pigeons could fly much better if the weights were slung listed below their bodies, rather than on their backs, so you would probably desire pigeons to lift your chair from above rather than support it from listed below.
Lets suppose your chair and harnesses weigh 5 kgs and you weigh 65 kilograms. If you utilized the pigeons from the 2013 study, it would take a flock of about 600 of them to raise your chair and fly upward with it.
The pigeons in the 2013 study were able to bring a load 1.4 meters upward to a perch, however they most likely wouldnt have actually been able to fly too much greater than that. One 1965 research study measured a climb rate of 2.5 m/s for unencumbered pigeons, * so even if were being optimistic, it appears not likely that pigeons might raise your chair more than 5 meters.
No problem, you may think. If 600 pigeons can raise you the first 5 meters, then you simply require to bring another 600 in addition to you, like the second stage of a rocket, to bring you the next 5 meters when the very first flock burns out. You can bring another 600 for the 5 meters after that and so on. The Q1 is 322 meters high, so about 40,000 pigeons should be able to get you to the top?
No. Theres a problem with this idea.
Because a pigeon can bring only a quarter of its body weight, it takes 4 flying pigeons to bring one resting pigeon. That suggests each “phase” will require a minimum of four times as numerous pigeons as the one above it. Raising someone may only take 600 pigeons, but raising a single person and 600 resting pigeons would take another 3,000 pigeons.
This rapid development indicates that a 9-stage lorry, able to raise you 45 meters, would need nearly 300 million pigeons, approximately equivalent to the whole worldwide population. Reaching the middle would need 1.6 × 1025 pigeons, which would weigh about 8 × 1024 kgs– more than the Earth itself. At that point, the pigeons wouldnt be taken down by the Earths gravity– the Earth would be brought up by the pigeons gravity.
The full 65-stage craft to arrive of the Q1 would weigh 3.5 × 1046 kilograms. Thats not simply more pigeons than there are on Earth, its more mass than there remains in the galaxy.
You might make things more efficient by recycling pigeons. In the 2013 study, the scientists offered the pigeons 30 seconds to rest on the perch prior to bringing them down for another trial. If each “stage” is 2 seconds, and pigeons are refreshed after 30 seconds, you could fly arbitrarily high with a 15-stage craft– however that would still require trillions of pigeons.
A better method may be to avoid bring the pigeons with you. Pigeons can get up to the top of the high-rise building themselves, so you may as well send them ahead to wait for you there instead of having their friends carry them up with you. If you could train them all right, you could have them glide along at the proper height, then grab you and tug you upward for a couple of seconds when you reach their altitude. Keep in mind that pigeons cant get and carry things with their feet, so they d need little harnesses with aircraft-carrier-style hooks to intercept you.
With this arrangement, its possible you could fly yourself to the top of the tower with simply a couple of tens of thousands of trained pigeons. You must most likely ensure you have some kind of security system that will keep you from plunging to your demise every time a falcon flies by and spooks the pigeons.
You may prepare to go to the top of the Q1, but when you take off … youll be completely under the control of anyone with a bag of seeds.All products recommended by Engadget are picked by our editorial group, independent of our parent company. If you purchase something through one of these links, we might make an affiliate commission.
How lots of pigeons would it require in order to lift the typical individual and a launch chair to the height of Australias Q1 high-rise building?