SCIENCE: Want to build a tower to the moon? Using LEGO? SOME LUNATICS DID THE MATHS.

[Gnac]

Da BBC sed:
It's not just children who like to build towers with Lego - the internet is alive with discussion on how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take to destroy the bottom brick. So what's the answer? There has been a burning debate on the social news website Reddit. It's a trivial question you might think, but one the Open University's engineering department has - at the request of the BBC's More or Less programme - fired up its labs to try to answer.

"It's an exciting thing to do because it's an entirely new question and new questions are always interesting," says Dr Ian Johnston, an applied mathematician and lecturer in engineering.

Looking on the internet, he expected to find the answer, but was surprised to find only a lot of speculation.

Perhaps that's because not everyone who has pondered the question has ready access to a hydraulic testing machine.

[article continues, click linky]

Considering some of the daft things done in the name of Science, it's astounding that kids would rather be rock stars. You can get paid for conducting fun experiments to reach obvious conclusions, or you can choke on your own puke after the difficult second album flopped, and the record company decides to honour the part of your contract which entitles them to sell your vital organs to repay the advance.

I once tried putting my own guitar in a hydraulic testing machine. It was destroyed. SCIENCE has been the new rock 'n' roll for quite a while!