Elon Musk claims that his new Gigafactory in Texas can hold 194 billion hamsters. This is a welcome development in measurement visualization, but we need some conversion factors.
For example, how many hamsters will an Olympic-sized swimming pool hold? We need to know this so that we can convert the old measures into hamster terms, or, perhaps, Gigafactory terms.
After all, we don't want to confuse anyone.
I'd like to see that in "cockroachs". Anybody know the conversion factor for how many roaches will fit in a hampster? ?????ÿ
We can't easily visualize huge numbers. The best comparisons result in a modest numerical value.
Saying a building is 10 train cars long is something we can grasp because we have seen 10 train cars.?ÿ Telling us how many hand spans long it is does not convey a useful image.
The size of a road sign in "postage stamps" or "nano-oregons" is nearly meaningless to our brains.?ÿ
This is why most people have no real sense of planetary or interstellar distances. Another reason for that is all the book illustrations that show the solar system with exaggerated planet sizes so they are not mere dots as they should be at that scale.
I remember a story that made the front page of the Chicago Tribune that explained how you could heat your house for the entire winter season by putting 10,000 chickens in your basement.
conversion factor for how many roaches will fit in a hampster
Here, I Googled it for you:
10,000 chickens in your basement
How would that smell?
Would it work in a cellar? Is that different than a basement?
?ÿ
With proper ventilation flow rates being maintained to benefit the chickens, a heat exchanger unit would be used to get the excess heat to the main floor of the house.?ÿ Thus, minimal aroma to the occupants.?ÿ The location of the outflow end of the ventilation ducting could be aimed towards the neighbor you like the least.
@bill93?ÿ
I agree. That's why we need a conversion factor. Apparently, the presentation said that the the building has a volume of 338 cubic feet. They must have left off some zeroes, 'cause I don't think that even a billion hamsters would fit into that.
Some upset soul from Twitter must have hacked the presentation.
@dougie?ÿ
I know exactly how bad that would smell. I grew up on a chicken farm in the Hudson Valley, and boy those dog days were really bad, even years after they got rid of the chickens and cleaned out the dried up manure it would still stink, I think the smell was embedded in the wood by that time.
I have no idea.?ÿ I just love the Kia Hamsters-
Should be a pretty easy conversion.?ÿ A couple years ago, the LA Times described the size of some potholes in a minor county highway as "about 3 washers in size".?ÿ A washer is just over 733 hamsters in volume (733.39 to be more exact)
10,000 chickens in your basement
How would that smell?
Would it work in a cellar? Is that different than a basement?
?ÿ
Hey there Doobie, if I had a basement or a cellar, (which is damn near impossile in FL) that would hold 10,000 chickens I would throw their asses out and grow something more profitable and enjoy it at the same time....just sayin' ?????ÿ
The gold standard for volume is how many Olympic swimming pools.
Talk with this guy.?ÿ He could run a fully legal commercial greenery out of your basement. (If you had one.)
What does that work out to in cubic zirconia?
@flga-2-2?ÿ
I heard chicken shit was a pretty good fertilizer...
@dougie?ÿ
I know exactly how bad that would smell. I grew up on a chicken farm in the Hudson Valley, and boy those dog days were really bad, even years after they got rid of the chickens and cleaned out the dried up manure it would still stink, I think the smell was embedded in the wood by that time.
Yep.?ÿ We had hogs and cows when I grew up.?ÿ Cow manure is bad but hog manure NEVER goes away.?ÿ I'm 200 miles and 50 years away and I can still smell it.
Andy
