Man vs Auto: Car Maths
December 8, 2009One classic Aussie bush song sung by Slim Dusty has the words:
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome, so dull or so drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer.
To parody this song:
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome, so dull or so drear
Than to stand next to a car made in your birth year!
The Queen
1926 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost
Prince Charles 1948 Standard Vanguard
Camilla Parker-Bowles 1947 Wolseley.
Kylie a 1968 Leyland Mini
Britney Spears 1981 Corvette.
Cars are little time capsules that reflect the hopes and vainglories of an era. Your era. And most of us would be looking at some pretty quaint old models.
Here are some cars from mathspigs family.
This is an Australian Model T Ford or Tin Lizzie produced in the 1920s with my Grandmother at the wheel. The boy (obscured) in the photo is my father. My grandparents owned a small wheat farm at Lalbert in the Mallee, Victoria near where my grandfather was born at – wait for it – Tittybong. The fires came in the 1930s, burnt the crop and the banks forclosed as often happened in the Great Depression. The banks not only took the car but the bridles off the horses!!! The car is important because my grandmother, Eileen, mother of 4 at the time, broke both her wrists crank starting it and her sister, Maggie, reset her sisters wrists on the kitchen table . Top Speed: 45 mph. Fuel consumption: 25 mpg (UK gallon)
My father left school at 13 to work on the farm and went to war at 19 in WWII fighting throughout the Pacific. On his return he married my mother and joined the police force. In the 1960s we, parents and 4 later 5 kids, moved to live on the police station at Kyneton, Victoria. We had the police phone in our kitchen and our car, the FC Holden (right) – ours had a pink door -was the police car. With the police phone in our kitchen, mum feeding the prisoners and our car used as the police car, I grew up in a sitcom. Later I wrote 3 books about it. Fuel Consumption: 9 l/ 100km
In the early 1970s when I went to University I had my first car. It was Horris, the Morris Minor and it was made in 1952, the year of my birth!!!! A car of some character its shock absorbers were shot so it bounced when it hit bumps. When it rained water splashed through holes near the brake while the windscreen wipers tended to flop forward and hit the bonnet (ie. hood) so in rain I had to drive with my hand out the triangular vent window holding the windscreen wiper onto the windscreen. Top Speed: 64 mph (102 kph) downhill with a tailwind. Fuel consumption: 40 mpg (UK Gallon or 5.9 l /100 km).
So here is the challenge mathspigs. Who uses more CALORIES to travel 10 km? A car produced in the year of your birth or you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Note: If you were born during WWII (1939-45) car production was limited so I will assign you an army vehicle, a 1940 Wily’s Jeep. This includes George W Bush 1946 Willys Jeep.
Car fuel consumption data can be found at Fuel Consumption Data Base for Australian cars.
Calories consumed walking @ eHOw (Note: On this website calories mean Calories or Kilocalories)
You can work it out mathspigs. Who uses more calories?????? Man or Auto?????????
Here are a few more celebrities with the birth year cars:
Elle Macpherson 1963 Lotus Elite
Zac Effron 1987 Ford Bronco
Tiger Woods 1975 Volvo
Miley Cyrus 1992 Honda Civic
Robert Downey Jnr 1965 Impala
Kate Winslet 1975 Triumph Spitfire
Eric Bana 1968 Holden Monaro
Cate Blanchett 1969 Toyota Corolla
Fang It to Me: Twilight Maths
November 24, 2009
Twilight, Stephanie Meyers vampire- romance book and film series, is a world phenomenon. Seventeen year old HIgh School student, Isabella “Bella” Swan, falls in love with Edward Cullen (Left), a vampire. But the Cullen family are ethical vampires. Though attracted to human blood; they live on the ethical alternative of animal blood. So here is the question mathspigs:
‘How much animal blood does a young male Vampire need to survive?
First we’ll collect some data. We’ll assume Edward needs the same daily intake of calories as a young human male. According to the Free Library Online article, Best Food for Young Athletes, young males between 14 – 18 years of age need 3,200 Calories per day. We’ll assume Edward needs 3,000 Calories a day.
How many Calories in Blood?
The Mayoclinic explains that 1 pint of human blood contains 650 Calories. So if you donate a pint of blood you lose 650 calories. Blood donation is not, however, a desirable weight loss program. If Edward drank human blood he would need
3,000/ 650 = 4.6 pints a day.
Note: There is great confusion on the Web about calories as the upper case ‘C’ stands for kilo in USA and is often ignored:
1 Calorie = 1 kilocalorie = 1,000 calories
But Edward has a taste for Mountain Lions (Below). How many Mountain Lions would he need to suck on a day??????? Dr Carlisle Cullen (Right), on the other hand, prefers deer. While Emmett Cullen has a taste for the blood of Gizzly Bears(Below). As Edward, Carlisle and Emmett cannot always sink their fangs into their favourite furry food here is some information about a range of possible Vampire Snacks.
Mountain Lion
Weight Range 75 – 275 lbs = 34 – 125 kg
Mid range Weight = 80kg
Gizzly Bear Male
Weight Range = 180 – 360 kg
Mid range weight = 170kg
Deer
Weight Range = 100 – 350 lbs = 45 -160 kg
Mid range weight approx = 100 kg
Barn Owl
Weight = 0.45 kg
Cow
Weight Range = 1,500 lbs = approx 680 kg
Mid range weight approx = 100 kg
Shih Tzu
Weight Range = 9 – 16 lb = 4 – 7.2 kg
mid weight = approx 5.5 kg
Fat Cat
Weight = 18 lbs = 8 kg
Koala
Weight range = 7.5 – 11 kg
Mid range weight = approx 9 kg
Note: In the following calculations we will use a mid range weight for each animal snack and assume Edward can suck out it’s entire blood supply. So Edward can empty an ocelot or koala (He might visit Australia one day and he’d be hungry!!!!) The weight of blood (Bwt)in an animal is 7% of the Animal’s Body Weight (Awt). This information comes from Animal Physiology Maths Questions. . Keep in mind if the answer is less than 1 the snack will last Edward several days. You can work out how many…… think about it.
Ocelot
Weight = 10.5 kg
Coyote
Weight = 12.7 kg
Alright Mathspig will tell you the typical weight of a pig with great reluctance. It is 110kg. But just to wet your appetite here is a little Vampire Snack I prepared earlier.
Edward would need to consume 13 Chihuahuas a day.
Run, Tinkerbelle, run!!! (That’s Paris Hilton’s dog)
Mathspig A Go Go!!!!
November 22, 2009
Mathspig is dizzy with excitement over worldwide interest in recent posts. Mathspig keeps in touch with Sarah Ebner (right )who edits the fabulous and informative Schoolgate Blog, Timesonline (UK). Sarah highlighted my post 10 Biggest Maths Disasters in the World last week and the response was overwhelming ( for a pig!)
It is a part of Mathspig’s Mission to get teachers, students, anyone talking about maths. That happened.
Meanwhile, one of Mathspig’s favourite maths bloggers is Jeff Trevaskis ( Right. Sorry, Jeff, it’s my favourite pic of you.)
. Jeff teachers high school maths in country Victoria, Australia, and finds time to run Webmaths, which tackles both fun issues and serious maths. One of his recent entries was titled SMELLY JOCKS?
A recent survey published in the Courier Mail suggested that more than half Aussie men wore the same undies for up to 3 days in a row. Eghhhhhh! I suggested to Jeff that an anonymous survey of, um, male students would probably produce a Normal Distribution or Bell Curve. But we’ll have to dub this one the SMELL CURVE.
COMING SOON: TWILIGHT MATHS
10 Movie Cliches Debunked with Maths
November 16, 2009
Movies aren’t real. There are, however, many Movie Clichés, that look real – 100s of them including
20. A man will show no pain while taking a ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds
9. If you are being chased through town you will usually take cover in a passing St Patrick’s Day Parade- at any time of the year.
Some Movie Clichés look ridiculous when you stop to think about them. Others can be debunked using simple maths.
So mathspigs, hold on to the front bonnet (hood in the US) of the baddies escape vehicle we’re going on a hair-raising maths ride.
1.You can duck bullets.
November 16, 2009
When creeping around looking for a baddie in a house/apartment/disused factory our hero can duck a bullet. Especially good at ducking bullets are spy heroes James Bond and Jason Bourne.
Speed of a bullet stats: The Physics Fact Book 
Rifle Shown: .22 Rimfire T-Bolt Target/Varmint
2.You can out run a fireball.
November 16, 2009
In nearly every Action Movie our hero possibly holding hands with his love interest will run and jump ( just in time ) out of the way of explosion. eg. Man on Fire (2004) with Denzel Washington, The Marine (2006) with John Triton and Predator 2 (1990) with Danny Glover (Note: In Predator pic baddies cannot out run fireball.)
We will use car bomb stats that come from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. (We in Australia can only assume this bureau exists because, um , there are many exploding cigars in America.) You will find these at Car Bomb Response.
3. You can out run machine gun fire
November 16, 2009
Indiana Jones has probably out run more machine gun fire than any other hero. But can you run from one point ot another despite machine gun fire? Here goes. 
Machine Gun M60
The question that must be asked, mathspigs, is ‘Can the baddies actually miss?’
We’ll assume the baddies can sweep the machine gun fire along the path run by our hero at the same rate or faster than our hero’s running speed. To survive our hero must fit in the gap between each bullet as it passes over his or her escape path. Here we go, mathspigs, ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak:
4. If you are involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion, you will not go into shock.
November 16, 2009
Here are just a few of the popular disaster movies:
Avalanche (2001), Earthquake (1974), Armageddon (Involves meteors 1998), Deep Impact (More meteors 1998), 2012 (Tsunamis, earthquakes, the lot. 2009), Twister (tornadoes 1996), Backdraft (Fire. 1991) and Towering Inferno (They don’t make thunderous movie titles like that anymore. 1974)
But what percentage of people involved in, say, an explosion suffer from SHOCK! There are many statistics about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) available. In one excellent study (The National Centre for PTSD Journal
involving an explosion in a paint factory in Norway (1976), the 246 employees were ranked for their exposure to shock as follows:. 
A. 66 Narrow escape
B. 59 Involved but not in danger
C. 121 Not present on the day.
80% Group A suffered shock and PTSD. Both Groups A & B showed symptoms of PTSD 7 months later. If, say, a plane crashed into your school and your class survived with minor injuries calculate how many students in your maths class would go into SHOCK and how many would be left to take action using the above statistics.
NOTE: Many schools in Australia today not only practise fire drills but terrorist attack lockdowns.
5. You can jump out of an airplane that is about to crash and catch the baddie who took the last parachute.
November 16, 2009 
The names Bond, James Bond. In Moonraker with Roger Moore (1979) 007 jumps out of a plane without a parachute to avoid an assassination attempt. He catches up with, Jaws, arch-baddie, in mid-air and takes his parachute. Jaws survives his fall by landing on a big top circus tent.
In Point Break with FBI agent Johnny Utah, Keanu Reeves, leaps from a skydiving plane after Patrick Swayzes’ characer, Bohdi, who has taken the last parachute. Utah catches Bohdi in mid-air, and after a tense confrontation with a gun, both survive using Bodhi’s chute.
There are more movie and real life stories at Free Fall Website:
http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/fiction.html
What’s the deal? Can Utah really catch Bohdi?
Here are some stats from the Free Fall Maths link:
http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/math.html
Note: We’ll assume Bhodi and Utah have equal horizontal velocities (plane exit velocity plus wind) so the following calculations only involve the vertical or falling velocity. The terminal velocities used for Bhodi and Utah are realistic estimates. We do not need the sky divers weight for these calculations but it can impact on terminal velocity so I have included this data and chute open data for general interest.
