back to article El Reg's 'Chuck Norris' faces down charging elephant

Reader Miguel Barreiro has proposed that the El Reg Standards Soviet adopt the charging adult elephant as an official unit of force following its deployment as a measurement of thrust of Copenhagen Suborbitals' HEAT-1XP rocket motor. The engine in question is the "most powerful amateur rocket ever flown", and according to a …

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  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    "Don't make it too good"

    I approve of this approach.

    I think the Russians use the same KISS approach, and I can't help thinking I'd be happier on a trip to Mars where you can fix things with a MK1 hammer rather than requiring a loupe so you can see the faulty part...

    1. LarsG
      Meh

      Yes but

      I am confused,

      Will this be based on the average weight of

      African Elephants or Indian Elephants

      Male or Female

      Fractions in Baby Elephants (Indian or African)

      Or can some one come up with a conversion formula?

  2. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Confusion?

    [W]e're concerned about possible confusion with the elephant per second.

    On the contrary! Having units of measure that have similar names but are applied to different areas adds legitimacy to their use.

  3. seven of five

    energy in a roundhouse kick

    I would have expected the energy in one of his roundhouse kicks to be a little more than "infinite", not just a few Newton.

    1. dogged
      Thumb Down

      Re: energy in a roundhouse kick

      That would leave no way of measuring Bruce Lee, who could kick Chuck Norris' fundamentalist ass back to the Stone Age that he doesn't believe in. Or Jet Li, who might well deliver enough force to devolve Norris to a hominid ancestor that he doesn't believe in.

      I hate Chuck Norris.

      1. Rob 5

        Re: I hate Chuck Norris.

        Really? He speaks very highly of you.

        1. dogged

          Re: I hate Chuck Norris.

          He really doesn't, you know.

      2. sisk

        Re: energy in a roundhouse kick

        Bruce Lee, who could kick Chuck Norris' fundamentalist ass back to the Stone Age

        Of course he could, being the man who taught Chuck Norris how to kick in the first place. Unfortunately he lacked the badassery and general Chuck Norrisness to survive a simple allergic reaction to a pain killer.

    2. BillG
      Mushroom

      Re: energy in a roundhouse kick

      The energy of a Chuck Norris kick is infinite in a vacuum.

      However, on Earth, Chuck Norris personally chooses to limit the force of his roundhouse kick to 100 Newtons. The last time Chuck Norris used a roundhouse kick of infinite force it led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

      Chuck Norris is beyond time and space.

  4. Monkey Bob
    Thumb Up

    Why not use blue whales & elephant seals? All this metric crap is just far too easy. It could be like stone, pound & ounces, except with blue whales, elephant seals, & oh I don't know, some sort of penguin maybe?

  5. Thomas 4
    IT Angle

    An alternative unit of Force

    I humbly put forward the Yoda as a unit of Force.

    Now before you all start groaning at the lame-ass pun, hear me out. The little green guy is capable of quite a large amount of thrust, as we saw in Empire Strikes Back when he lifts the X-Wing out of the swamp. Randall Munroe does a considerably better job of explaining the details: http://what-if.xkcd.com/3/

    However, Mr Munroe's calculations only give us the potential wattage produced by application, not the force output.

    So, based on the supplied mass of an X-Wing as 5,600kg (5.6 metric tons) and acceleration of 0.39m/s2:

    5600 x 0.39 = 2184 N

    Quite a lot lower than a charging elephant but 20 times stronger than the Norris. Hmmm. More thought required with regards to scaling here.

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: An alternative unit of Force

      * with regards to scaling here, more thought required.

    2. Gordo Rex

      Re: An alternative unit of Force

      I thought The Force was measured in Jedis?

      1. P. Lee

        Re: An alternative unit of Force

        Nope, in dying people - but that could include Jedis.

  6. DN4
    FAIL

    Force?

    One charging elephant would be a nice unit of momentum. But force? I am disappointed.

  7. MrT

    "Most powerful amateur rocket..." ?

    Top Gear's Rocket Robin pushes this close - I know they didn't exactly measure the final version, only that it was "in excess of 8 tons", which is about 7.25 tonnes

    Here's a link from the guys that built it...

  8. Harvey Trowell
    Boffin

    Related question.

    If 609 elephants are passing through the sluices every second, how many dung beetles does it take to prevent them becoming blocked with da poop?

  9. John Sager
    Boffin

    Surely momentum?

    A charging elephant has mass & velocity, so surely it's a unit of momentum. The force then depends on how quickly you can stop the charge: Ft = mv so as t gets smaller F gets bigger.

  10. Andus McCoatover
    Joke

    Now, there's a bloody idea! LOHAN - You're good for go, Flight!

    Pulley system attached to an already-launched weather balloon, truss (LOHAN) attached to the other end by a long cable. Bull elephant charges at something attached to the other end of the cable (Like, a painting of another bull elephant)? LAUNCH!

    C'mon.. it's environmentally friendly!

  11. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Coat

    Pfffft! Who asked Johnny Foreigner?

    So, we have a perfectly good imperial measurement of the Norris, and some Johnny Foreigner wants to replace it with some "foreign standard"? It's the Metric System all over again! Enough is enough! Tell your foreign chum to sling his hook, or better still stuff his pachyderms up his bottom! Churchill would never have stood for it....

  12. Dave Bell
    Coat

    Measuring Slimmers

    After seeing the adverts and fake magazine editorials of post Christmas weight loss, I feel that the best unti for measuring weightloss would be the Zeppelin. Then the promoters of the various slimming systems could legitimately claim that the ;latest faddish diet would reduce your weight by at least a Zeppelin per week.

    Ho on, work it out, I'll just go get my coat...

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