Friday, June 27, 2008

Tungsten boat

Just an exercise in calculating volumes and masses: Given a hemispherical boat with inner hull radius R and hull thickness h and hull density d, will it float? The densest everyday material is gold or tungsten. Given a boat with hull thickness of h=30 cm (a battleship), what is the minimum size of a gold boat that will float? Volume increases by the cube, but surface area by the square, so there guaranteed to be a solution.

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