pan wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
> news:477ad72c$1@news.povray.org...
>> You are sitting in a canoe, in a swimming pool, holding a cannon 
>> ball in your lap. You throw the cannonball overboard, and it 
>> sinks to the bottom. Does the level of water in the pool go up, 
>> go down, or stay the same?
>>
>> (I've asked this of probably a dozen or more scuba dive 
>> instructors, and only one has gotten it right. The reasoning 
>> behind the correct answer is obvious once you hear it. I don't 
>> remember if I got it right when I heard it.)
>>
>> -- 
>>   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
>>     It's not feature creep if you put it
>>     at the end and adjust the release date.
> 
> Well that's interesting:
> 
> If one cannon ball level imperceptibly lowers;
> 
> If MANY cannon balls the swiiming pool will
> fill tis cavity and eventually overflow;
> 
> Graphing the water level versus number of
> cannon balls does not result in a linear
> image.
> 
> Bonus points:
> 1. How many cannon balls before dip becomes rise?
> (assume  CB V= .001 swimming pools and
> CB density equals 7.87 g/mL)
> 2. What is the type name of such curves?
> 3. What kind of person would assume a swimming
> pool could be *drained* by dropping cannon balls
> into it?

1: If all the cannon balls are in the canoe to start with, then I don't
even see the canoe staying afloat.

2: Given 1, I would assume this is the 'magic canoe' type of curve. =)

3: The pool could not be completely drained by dropping equal sized
cannon balls into it. If the balls fall in a random close packing form,
the best you could get is about 65% of the volume of water out of the pool.

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