Question: An overindulgent parent, you buy your kid too many helium balloons at the fair, then look back shocked to see her soaring 100 feet into the sky. How many is "too many"?Answer: Figure a cubic foot of air to weigh about 0.078 pounds, so that's the upward buoyant force on a cubic foot of helium, which of course is lighter than air, says Louis A. Bloomfield in "How Things Work."
A cubic foot of helium weighs only about 0.011 pounds — the difference of 0.067 being the lifting force of the helium. Now, how much does the child weigh?
If you assume 40 pounds, then it will take about 600 cubic feet of helium to achieve liftoff — either 600 biggish 1-cubic-foot balloons or a single enormous roped balloon 10 feet in diameter.
Just hope there's no big wind. As the gas leaks out, your high-flying daughter should come back down to Earth.
Question: If a venomous snake bites itself, will it die?
Answer: Depends on the vigor of the venom, how much is injected (often none is) and the health of the snake, says University of Florida herpetologist Max Nickerson. It could cause little reaction, or death if vital tissue is involved.
So why would a snake do this in the first place?
Accidents happen, as when a strike badly misses target prey. Then there are those stories of cornered or injured snakes biting themselves to commit suicide. Certainly a snake under stress may self-inflict, most notably when it's pinned with a hook or stick and goes into a frenzy. Bright lights and heat are also triggers: Brought into a TV studio, a sidewinder rattlesnake began self-biting and died shortly afterward.
Extreme cold is another factor. Lowering reptiles' body temperature to freezing has been used as a humane way to euthanize them. "On several instances I found rattlesnakes with their fangs embedded mid-body after euthanization."
Question: Try this brain-stumper from Clifford Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage": What's the next number in the series 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221 . . . Hint: No math calculations are necessary.
Answer: This one's tough. After the 1, the second number states that there is one 1 (11) in the previous number. The third number states that there are two 1s (21) in the number before; then one 2 and one 1 (1211); then one 1 and one 2 and two 1s (111221). So the stumper answer is 312211, since the number before had three 1s and two 2s and one 1. Get it?
Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@compuserve.com