Curved money bin

Kriton Kyrimis kyrimis at cti.gr
Tue Apr 9 12:18:05 CEST 2002


Thinking about whether the sides of Scrooge's money bin should be curved
(as in Italian stories) or straight (as in Barks' and Don's stories), I
just realized that a money bin with straight sides would be a collapsed
money bin.  Look at how water dams are constructed: they are much
thicker at the bottom, to withstand the higher pressure there. Multiply
this pressure by the specific gravity of the metal used for coins, and
you'll see that the pressure at the bottom of the money bin is several
times higher than the pressure at the bottom of a water dam of the same
height. If Scrooge had ever built a money bin with straight sides (to
save on concrete, perhaps), all the Beagle Boys would have had to do
would be to wait at the bottom of Killmotor hill until Scrooge started
filling the bin with money. They could then collect the money as it fell
down the hill when the bin exploded.

Perhaps some Disney artist with a background in civil engineering ;-)
might want to shed more light on this. Would it make sense, e.g., if the
space inside the bin were not a cube, but an inverted cone or pyramid,
so that the walls would be thicker at the bottom?

Of course, this doesn't explain why Italian money bins are narrow in
the middle, rather than the top!

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
-----
"Things are only impossible until they're not."
-----




More information about the DCML mailing list