Physics of Cow Tipping
Cow-tipping may be far more difficult than dumb jocks might lead you to believe. Zoologists from the University of British Columbia conducted a study on the physics of the activity.
Ms (Tracy) Boechler, now a trainee forensics analyst for the Royal Canadian Mounted Corps, concluded in her initial report that a cow standing with its legs straight would require five people to exert the required force to bowl it over.
A cow of 1.45 metres in height pushed at an angle of 23.4 degrees relative to the ground would require 2,910 Newtons of force, equivalent to 4.43 people, she wrote.
Dr (Margo) Lillie, Ms Boechler’s supervisor, revised the calculations so that two people could exert the required amount of force to tip a static cow, but only if it did not react.
“The static physics of the issue say . . . two people might be able to tip a cow,” she said. “But the cow would have to be tipped quickly — the cow’s centre of mass would have to be pushed over its hoof before the cow could react.”
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November 9th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
seriously, these ppl have TOOOOO much time on their hands!
I’m just glad US tax dollars didn’t fund this study. ha!
jf
November 10th, 2005 at 12:09 am
just canadian tax dollars.
No wonder crime rate there is so low.. they’re too busy figuring out this shit.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:05 pm
Actually the Canadian govt didn’t either - it was a paper Tracy did for the class. She just wanted to do something different and fun.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:06 pm
So we just have low crime rate … where not just figuring out this shit….but you make it sound like low crime rate is a bad thing…..figures.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:28 pm
You forgot sense of humor and grammatical skills.