Humour- Surface area of elephant

[Guest guest]

HI friends,

The Ig Noble Prize, ie the parody of Noble Prize this year

was awarded to an Indian Mr.Sreekumar of kerala. The award was given for the

craziest mathematical research work " Estimation of the total surface area

in Indian elephants " (Elephus maximus indicus) . Mr.Sreekumar is Assistant

professor at Department of Physiology, Kerala agricultural university.

For calculating the the surface area , they devided the elelephant

geometrically into different surface regions. The trunk was considered as a

cylender with both ends open. The front nasal region was regarded as

rectangle, and the hip region as a trapezium. The sum of these areas were

calculated using geometrical formulae and a linear equation was made. The

surface area 'S'

 

S= -8.245 + 6.807H + 7.073 FFC where

H = Height at shoulder

FFC = Forefoot pad circumfrance

 

The study was on 24 elephants 12cow eelephants and 12 bulls at the age

ranging from 18 to 60. Beneath the humour the work is relevant to the

vetinary world. The research will help to fix medical dosages wich should be

proportional to weight or total surface area. The work first make people

laugh and then think.

 

(The Ig Noble prizes are awarded by the Havard University, and is sponsored

by scientific humour journal Annals of improbable research. The first Ig

Noble prize was awarded in 1991)

 

Hope you enjoyed the formulae

sandeep

 

(You can view the photo of the injured elephant mentioned in my last message at

http://www.geocities.com/sandeep_e/eleacdnt.html )