The Tragic Story of a Poorly Educated
Wolf
Once upon a time, there lived a mother pig and three children. Theylived a hut. The first little pig was the laziest of the three and was foolish. The second pig was wiser than the first and did a little more work than the first. The third pig was the wisest and did a good job at what he did.
One day the mother pig said, "It is time for you to go seek your fortunes, since the hut is too small."
So the little pigs left the hut and their aging mother pig and trotted down the road. The first little pig came to an old man with a cart full of straw.
"Hello Sir," greeted the first pig, "May I have 50000 grams of straw to make my house?"
"Yes you may," agreed the aged man, "But I measure my hay in kilograms." So the little pig divided 50000 by1000, since there are 1000 grams in a kilogram. This is the same as moving the decimal place three places to the left, or converting grams to kilograms.
"May I have 50 kilograms of straw?" asked the pig.
"Yes you can," the old man consented.
So the first little pig took the straw and quickly built a nice large house (naturally yellow) by the road, not caring to use a sturdier material. Then he played around all day, while the second little pig came to a young man with a 1000 kilogram load of oak sticks.
"May I have 100 kilograms of sticks?" beseeched the second pig.
"Yes you may have 100 kilograms of sticks, "agreed the young man.
The second pig, not caring about the fact that sticks were not known for their stability, built a house made of oak sticks, only doing the job with a little more care than the first.
The third pig, and by far the wisest, saw a man with 1000 kilograms of bricks.
"I need 100 kilograms of bricks to build my house," pleaded the pig, "may I have 100 kilograms of bricks?"
"You may have the bricks," agreed the man.
So the third little pig took the bricks, and he built a nice red house with great care.
One day a very hungry wolf discovered he was out of pork for his lunch. He decided to pay a visit to the new pigs in the neighborhood. So the wolf walked down the road to the first pig's house.
"Open up! I want to gobble you up!" the wolf shouted as he pounded on the door.
"Not by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin!" a very frightened pig squealed.
"I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house in!" threatened the wolf.
True to his word, the wolf was seen, 3000 grams heavier, walking from a 50 kilogram pile of straw.
Soon the wolf reached the second pig's house.
"Open up! I want to eat you up!" exclaimed the wolf.
"Not by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin!" squealed the second pig.
"I will huff and puff and blow your house in!" shouted the wolf.
Five minutes later, a (2000 grams heavier) wolf left a 100-kilogram pile of oak sticks.
Finally, the wolf came to the third pig's house. Deciding to rather lure the pig out than blow the house down (which the wolf figured was easy), he said in a sweet voice, "Do you want to go to the fair tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning?"
"I would love to," sighed the wary pig, "I will see you there."
The pig, knowing what the wolf was trying to do, went to the fair at nine o'clock and bought a 40-Liter barrel that weighed 5-kilograms. So on the way downhill back from the fair, he saw the wolf walking up the hill. Climbing into the barrel, the 45-kilogram pig started rolling down the hill the 500 meters to the wolf.
The pig reached the 500-meter distant wolf in 100 seconds. Since speed is distance divided by time, 500 meters divided by 100 seconds is 5 meters per second. Using a calculator at home, the pig calculated this.Therefore, the pig's average speed was 5 meters per second. The pig wanted to know the momentum with which he hit the wolf, so he multiplied the mass (five plus 45= 50) by the velocity (5 meters per second) to get 250 kilogram meters per second. Thus, the pig hit the wolf going 5 meters per second.
The wolf was knocked headfirst down the remaining 500 meters of the hill. He then stood up and limped the 1000 meters to his home in 1000 seconds. Since 1000 divided by 1000 is 1, the wolf limped at a rate of 1 meter per second. The pig kept rolling until he was stopped by the bushes that exerted a force equivalent and opposite to that of his momentum going down the hill.
The next day the pig calculated the boiling point of water at the altitude of 292.6 meters above sea level for the pot of water in the fireplace. Since there is one degree Celsius change for every 292.6 meters above sea level, he subtracted one degree Celsius from 100 degrees Celsius to get a boiling point of 99 degrees Celsius. As he only owned a Fahrenheit thermometer, he needed to convert the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit. He used the formula f=9/5C+32, substituting 99 for C, to get 210 degrees Fahrenheit of the boiling water.
The wolf, hungry, banged on the door, "Open up or I'll come down the chimney and eat you!" So the wolf, not knowing about the 40 liters of boiling water, got a 5 meter tall, 30 kilogram ladder from his home and placed it against the 7-meter tall roof, jumped the remaining 2 meters to the roof. He then walked the 3 meters to the chimney, which measured one meter wide by one meter long, and by 8 meters deep chimney and jumped in.
The wolf landed with a splash inside the kettle full of boiling water. Shutting the 100 Liter volume kettle with a lid, the third pig boiled the wolf and added the necessary amount of seasoning. He invited all his friends over to his house for wolf stew. So the hungry wolf managed to get invited to the pig's house for stew, however, due to his skimpy physics education, he got to experience the stew more than he would have wanted. The End!
PS: If the reader is interested in recreating this experiment, it takes 23 minutes to boil a wolf at this altitude to a state of medium-rare.