From: James Rosinski Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet Subject: [alt.folklore.urban] Raining in the Superdome? Europa? Date: 14 Mar 1998 19:24:01 -0700 Subject: Raining in the Superdome? Europa? From: Billy Newsom Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban, sci.astro Can it rain in the Superdome? The meteorologists say no, it's not tall enough, nor is the building that holds the Space Shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center. (Especially since they are climate-controlled.) But the rumors persist about the appearance of rain or drizzle inside these large buildings. Here's the trivia -- yes, a baseball game versus the Astros and Pirates was "rained out" in the seventies, quite an unusual occurrence when playing in a domed stadium. The Astrodome wasn't leaking or anything, but the rain in Houston was so bad, none of the players or umpires could make it to the game.... Not to mention fans. Speaking of the Superdome -- I found the following data(*): Volume of the Superdome (Vs) = 125 x 10^6 cubic feet Typical Volume of farts (Vf) = 600 mL (per day figure) Atmospheric Pressure on Europa (Pe) = 1 x 10^(-11) torr Atmospheric Pressure on Earth (Pa) = 760 torr Okay, so if the Superdome is evacuated, and I fart, what will be the ending pressure inside (Ps)? Using the ideal gas law, PV = nRT, we arrive at the following equality: -> Ps * Vs = Pa * Vf -> solve for Ps Using liters, we get Vs ~ 3.54 x 10^9 L Vf = 0.6 L Ps = 1.29 x 10^-7 torr (or 0.0130 Pascal) Therefore, we can say that by farting inside the Superdome, I would cause the pressure to be ten thousand times greater than the atmospheric pressure of Jupiter's moon, Europa. (Of course if I merely squeezed out a little poot, I might approximate it better, aye?) One thing I neglected to mention -- farts may not act like ideal gases. * http://www.[deleted].com/domeinfo.htm http://seds.lpl.[deleted].edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/europa.html Billy "Statistically Irreverent" Newsom