Date:         Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:12:36 -0700
Reply-To:     Richard A Jones <Jones@COLORADO.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard A Jones <Jones@COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:      Re: is anyone going to roast a turkey in the van?
In-Reply-To:  <200911270507.ARC95718@Colorado.EDU>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

About 30 years ago the Journal of Irreproducible Results
(http://www.jir.com/home.html) had a wonderful report of
a college physics lab exercise--cooking a turkey by the
transformation of kinetic energy to thermal energy.

The students were to measure how long to cook the turkey
by running it up a 10 story college building and dropping
it out the window.  At the pavement, the kinetic energy
is tranformed to thermal, and voila!, the turkey cooks--
a little bit.  How many trips are needed?

Well, the Vanagon is a perfect vehicle++ to adapt this method
to.  Let the kinetic energy of the Vanagon be transfered
to a turkey hanging on a string.  In giving the Vanagon's
energy to the turkey, some is transformed to thermal and
the turkey starts to cook.

"Over the river and through the woods...." is probably about
far enough to repeat the above transfer scenario to cook
the turkey for Grandma.

++A more modern vehicle such as a Porsche Cayenne, travelling
above 125 miles per hour (200 km per hour) could transfer much
more energy in a single hit to the turkey, but would probably
introduce undesired side effects such as the pulverization of
the bird.  Plus, no Porsche owner would think of getting a
smudge on the front of his car.

I waited until today to post this--after all the turkeys were
cooked--because I didn't want anybody to get hurt....   ;-)

Richard