Centurion2000:
WTF ? a 30 meter BALL of melted iron is gonna weigh MUCH MORE.Zeko:
Something's wrong here -- a solid iron sphere about 30 meters in diameter would weigh more by a factor of about a million . . .Close, but no cigar (you have to actually call it to nail it)
Oberon:
The cut-and-paste failed...the actual number was probably supposed to be 10^8Ding! Ding! Ding! We have our first winner!
Fredgoblu:
Methinks the author missed a few zeros.familyop
Yes. Stevenson's "modest proposal" is probably some kind of left/liberal satire.King Prout:
maybe 108 kg?Ding! Ding! Ding! We have our second winner!
Now, that portion of the original document on the caltech.edu website from which the posted story was developed:
I describe here a mission to Earth?s core in which a probe is imbedded in a large volume of liquid iron alloy that migrates to the core along a crack propagating under the action of gravity.The time to reach the core is ~ a week and the minimal required volume of iron ~ 108 kg, or about one hour of Earth's iron production.
And last but not least, we have the original document from which specifics were pulled for the posted article:
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