Thursday, October 23, 2014

"Proving the balloon had caused the stampede came down to a farmer’s wife, a golfer’s tool, and a mathematician"

"Low Moor Farm, a pig farm in North Yorkshire, England, had sued hot air balloon company Go Ballooning for causing the stampeding deaths of numerous pigs."
At issue was determining the actual height of the balloon when it passed over the farm (law prevents hot air balloons from flying lower than 1,500 feet). Weapon #1: The wife of a nearby farmer had coincidentally taken a photo of the balloon that day, offering the first piece of photographic evidence. Weapon #2: a laser rangefinder owned by Low Moor farmer Mick Gilbank, which he used to determine the exact height of the trees.
But the ace in the hole was trigonometry, that sine wave scourge of your sophomore year. Chris Fewster, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of York, testified that the balloon had floated as close as 300 meters, or less than 1000 feet, from the pigs. How’d he do that? The actual formula makes our head hurt (we’re writers, not math geeks), but in layman’s terms he used the length of the balloon, the focal length of the of the camera, and the height of the trees to calculate the tilt of the camera and thus the distance of the balloon. Blinded by the science, Go Ballooning ended up paying out a settlement of 40,000 pounds.

21 comments:

The Dude said...

Sine wave? Or Law of Sines.

No wonder that moron is a reporter - that is such basic math it makes my head hurt to think that someone who votes can't figure it out.

Fucking retard.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I think it was Fran Lebowitz who said that in real life there is no such thing as algebra.

I have to presume she meant that as some sort of a self-depricating joke because otherwise I'd have to believe she's an arrogant idiot.

And very few people are that stupid.

The Dude said...

Fran was.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Deprecate.

Like defecate, expectorate, eructate and flatulate.

Calypso Facto said...

I mourn for a world in which basic math and science is somehow seen as arcane magic by much of the population ...

The Dude said...

I daresay that many of us here have studied math right up to the limits of our ability. At some point it does become a bit abstract and difficult to imagine, but geometry? You have got to be kidding me - that stuff is so basic and necessary that it confounds me that people can't be bothered to learn some of it.

But then again, I use math every day in my line of work. I must be spatial.

deborah said...

I took geometry in high school and college. Both times I was amazed at how neat and easy it was. Math is so cool.

Chip Ahoy said...

focal length of the camera lens?

That's tricky business right there. For you see, it matters the camera the lens is fitted. 3 of my 4 lenses are made for larger sensor, a larger camera. This completely jacks the focal length of each lens. They say it makes no difference in output but it does, it means automatic cropping to all images and it renders the published focal length numbers unreliable, or at least in need or recalculation. [see FX lens on DX camera]

The balloon height calculation is done with known lengths and distances and without camera lens focal length.

rhhardin said...

Hot air balloons are the final step in teaching a sit stay or heel off leash.

There's this big thing and an enormous hissing noise, the ultimate temptation to bolt.

You will have had a loose line dragging on the dog so you can tell it that no, you do have to hold even for hot air balloons.

A question that to that point had not been answered.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It was a fairly disturbing scene in Hud (1963) when they were shooting the cattle.

Kind of makes you wonder if it'd have been as sad if it had been pigs.

deborah said...

rh, don't you mean Lady of the Ring?

KCFleming said...

I remember doing this very math problem in 8th grade.

There were no pigs in it, though.

It's disappointing -but not surprising- that the balloonists did not readily admit they screwed up.

They must have had an altimeter. They must have seen the stampede.

KCFleming said...

"Maths" sounds funny to me still.

The Dude said...

I like "maths" - to my ear it reminds me of mathematics, because there are more than one.

deborah said...

I was thinking maths when I made my post. But I love my British spy and mystery novels.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

(1) I thought "maths" was one of those cute internet things, like "sadz" or "oh noes."

(2) Anyway, I was once at a county fair swine judging ring in a tent.

Bleachers.

The only thing between you and the pigs running around berserk was one of several guys armed with something that looks like a quarter sheet of plywood.

You can get really hurt.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

One of the pigs broke through to the second tier of the bleachers.

I never saw people move so fast.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

From what I could gather, the boards serve mostly to keep the pigs away from each other.

Many had gashes on their flanks.

From tusks, was my surmise.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Animal husbandry, red in tooth and tusk.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's funny what you remember.

Remember after 20 years.

"I normally like to see more meat on that stifle muscle."

Spoken by one of the swine judges, over the P.A. system.