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From: drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.physics
Subject: check your figures
Message-ID: <1617@culdev1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Oct-87 10:57:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: culdev1.1617
Posted: Wed Oct  7 10:57:44 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Oct-87 10:26:12 EDT
Organization: Cullinet Software, Westwood, MA, USA
Lines: 34
Xref: mnetor sci.bio:700 sci.physics:2430

doug@ndcheg.UUCP (Doug Price) writes:
> Since xenon
> is 4.56 more dense than air at 21 C, I wonder how you can keep a homogenous
> mixture of xenon/O2 without going to zero gravity?

Using the Maxwell-Boltzman distribution to examine how the density of
xenon and, say, oxygen vary with altitude:

	density is proportional to exp[ - m g h / k T ]

	where m = mass of atom/molecule, g = earth's accelleration, h =
		altitude, k = Boltzman's constant, T = absolute temperature

you can figure out that the density of xenon varies with altitude only
a little more than the density of oxygen does, and the difference in
densities varies about as fast.  Remember, nonzero temperature tends
to keep things stirred up!  (but it's significant only if they have a
*real* small mass)

> Also, 300 liters of 
> 800 psig xenon will run you approximately $3600 (U.S.). 

It seems to me you're going to need around 1000 atm, which is 15000
psi, which must cost around US$72,000 for 300 liters, and that's only
the volume of a human body.  And building the storage tank would be
hard.

But it would *still* be *fun*!!!

Dale
-- 
Dale Worley    Cullinet Software      ARPA: culdev1!drw@eddie.mit.edu
UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!culdev1!drw
Give me money or kill me!