Recent Calculations

Latest calculations from the blog - Page 5

If the Spanish Armada Had Dropped a Plastic Bottle, Would It Be Gone by Now?
Physics & Science · Everyday Life

If the Spanish Armada Had Dropped a Plastic Bottle, Would It Be Gone by Now?

A PET bottle tossed into the English Channel during the Spanish Armada (1588) would still be intact today — with 12 years left on the clock. PET takes roughly 450 years to degrade in marine conditions, and that timeline gets much worse in a landfill. We calculate polymer breakdown timelines, the cube-law fragmentation math that turns one bottle into 18 trillion particles, and why NOAA still can't give you a definitive answer.

#plastic#decomposition#microplastics#environment#PET#polymer
Your One Ton of Plastic: How Much of Humanity's Plastic Is Actually Yours?
Everyday Life · Cosmic & Scale

Your One Ton of Plastic: How Much of Humanity's Plastic Is Actually Yours?

Since 1950, humanity has produced roughly 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic. Split evenly by world population, that comes to over a tonne per person — yet only 9% was ever recycled, and 886 kg of your share is sitting in a landfill or the ocean right now. We run the numbers and show how much the recycling rate actually matters.

#plastic footprint#plastic pollution#recycling rates#ocean plastic#environmental impact#per capita waste
One Elephant's Worth: How Much Stool Does a Human Produce in a Lifetime?
Body & Health · Everyday Life

One Elephant's Worth: How Much Stool Does a Human Produce in a Lifetime?

Over a lifetime, a human produces roughly 5,249 kg of stool — about the weight of an adult African elephant. We calculate what fraction of your daily calories exits unused, why a vegan diet scores 74% digestive efficiency while a low-fiber diet hits 93%, and what Kleiber's Law tells us about why mice produce more waste per kilogram than elephants.

#digestion#feces#energy efficiency#metabolism#lifespan
What Happens When You Buy Every Lottery Combination? A Full Cost-Benefit Analysis
Money & Economy

What Happens When You Buy Every Lottery Combination? A Full Cost-Benefit Analysis

Buying all 8.1 million Korean Lotto combinations costs about ₩8.1 billion (~US$6.0M). Even winning the jackpot solo doesn't cover it in a typical draw. Buying half looks like a 50/50 coin flip — but the loss when you miss is 3× the gain when you hit. We work out exactly when it becomes theoretically profitable and how big a Powerball jackpot you'd need.

#lottery#probability#economics#break-even#Korean Lotto#Powerball