A Rake and Five Brooms
Comments: 13
It’s an enchanting but little-known fact that the number of human calories expended world-wide in raking leaves each year roughly equals π times the number of arboreal calories required to make the leaves throughout the preceding year.
Advances in rake and broom design over the years have curiously failed to shift the balance of energy expenditure one way or the other, nor have developments in raking or sweeping techniques (such as the Vermont Shuffle, the Overhanded Rita, or the Transverse Stretch) measurably affected the calorific reckoning.
Electric or petrol leaf blowers, however, obviously threaten this delicate equation (in addition to being infuriatingly noisy) and should be scrupulously avoided.
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Posted to Photographs • 2003.11.22 (Sat) • 01:41
Comments
Posted by Blaine Hilton 2003.11.22, 02:04
I hate blowers too, they use that gas/oil mix that you have to do, which is a pain, is messy, and the 2 cycle engines are very bad for the environement. Just give me a big leaf rake and let me go at it.
Posted by lolly 2003.11.22, 02:40
What gets me is the wat people sweep them into neat piles on the pavement. Then one of two things happen:
there is a gust of wind and leaves are returned to their pre-sweep state.
a flying looney tune nutcase on a mountain bike [1] careers through them and the leaves are returned to a pre-sweep state.
[1] i.e. me.
Posted by J2 2003.11.22, 03:30
Is that (pi) times the number of arboreal calories required to make the leaves throughout the preceding year. As in 3.14… etc.?
Posted by Henry Todd 2003.11.22, 05:14
Jeremy, surely you’re kidding with the pi comment? How would anyone begin to measure this? Cute theory though.
Posted by J2 2003.11.22, 22:14
1) Who is Jeremy? 2) I imagine you are talking about me. 3) Pi is still just a number that can be multiplied. 4) And finally, it is pi, so it isn’t a theory, it is a fact.
Posted by jh 2003.11.23, 01:22
Henry —- not kidding exactly … more just wishful thinking. If anything, I think it’s probably closer to pi times arboreal calories squared (we need to figure in a circular equation to bring us back to the start of the year).
It is true, though, that the average ratios of the actual length of rivers to their distance from source to sea as the crow flies is pi.
I was quite stunned when I learned this but when I told a friend, he was unimpressed and just said, “Well, of course. It must be.” I felt quite sorry that he couldn’t share what was almost an epiphany. I had no idea it was common knowledge.
Posted by Henry Todd 2003.11.23, 02:31
Jeremy – it seems I have some reading to do, pi is evidently a more interesting number than I’ve previously given it credit for (not that I’ve really thought about it that much).
The rivers thing sounds familiar somehow – probably another fascinating fact I’ve been told at some point, been amazed by and then promptly forgotten.
I think I’ll ask one of the professors in my department about the arboreal calories thing.
Posted by Henry Todd 2003.11.23, 02:34
Jeremy – I forgot to say – nice photo! Though it seems that five brooms and a rake is a bit of overkill for one tree :) .
Posted by jh 2003.11.23, 02:44
Henry —- I made up everything except the part about the rivers … but I wasn’t kidding (if that makes sense). Just want to be clear about this before you go taking anything to your professors (although, of course, I would be interested in what they have to say).
Something tells me that I’m right, though. ;-)
Posted by Mary Beth 2003.11.23, 05:12
Leaf blowers I don’t understand at all. If you’re going to use noisy, polluting technology for something like leave removal, why not at least VACUUM rather than BLOW? Me, I totally take the coward’s way out. If I do anything, I mow the leaves into the garden area, which both chops them up and gives me free mulch. Too lazy to work that hard (leaf blower) and definitely too cheap to buy one.
Posted by dowingba 2003.11.23, 13:08
Sure, a human using a leaf-blower expends less energy. But the leaf-blower itself makes up the difference. There’s simply no way around it. You are right, JH. The energy expended to create more leaves will always be the same in relation to the energy expended to get rid of the leaves. But, of course, if the human uses more energy than is needed, there’ll be exaust. Ahem.
Posted by didactylos 2003.11.30, 14:54
lol conservation of energy in it’s best form ..humor
Posted by Gladys 2004.02.01, 06:43
I was absolutely blown away by your findings. But what I’d really like to know is how on earth did you arrive at these amzing results. I’m sure lots of people would be fascinated to read an account of your experiments.
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