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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Bottled birds?
Message-ID: <337@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 12:22:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.337
Posted: Thu Aug 29 12:22:10 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 07:46:07 EDT
References: <457@petfe.UUCP>
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 28

In article <457@petfe.UUCP> bobp@petfe.UUCP (Bob Philhower) writes:
> Given:  A bottle, (of arbitrary size), containing one (1) bird 
> (of arbitrary species).  The bottle is placed on a garden-variety
> bathroom scale (arbitrarily accurate) [...]

... and we're asked if the reading on the scale depends upon whether the
bird is flying and whether the bottle is open.  I'll add a question: if
it makes no difference, does the weight on a scale increase because a
bird (or a plane, or, for that matter, Superman) flies overhead?

This question is the basis for a bizarre joke about somebody delivering
3 tons of parakeets in a 1-ton truck, and having to pound on the wall
behind him "to keep 2/3 of them in the air."  Jack Paar told it on the
Tonight Show and Hugh Downs, his announcer, stopped the show dead by
explaining that 3 tons of parakeets could not possibly fit into a panel
truck (Downs must have a physics degree... or maybe even something
worse, like math).

As for me, every morning I get on my bathroom scale with my parakeet,
Braak, standing on my finger.  If the reading is greater than that for
the previous day, I give Braak hell.

Yes, I know this isn't physics.  Turn off those accelerators.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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