How much wood would a wood chuck chuck, if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

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tourist

Senior Member
Mar 13, 2014
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Tennessee
#21
(from Dino’s Daily Dose – Day 11 – How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? | Dino Giacomazzi)


Question: Here's one for you, been around for quite a while but could never seem to find the answer.
Now, Assuming a woodchuck could in fact , chuck wood, how much wood would he chuck in say,,,,,,, 15 minutes? Thats a number easily devisable into 60 making for an easy chuck- per- hour rate and a short enough time to observe the woodchuck at full chucking capacity without reaching its anaerobic threshold which would inevitably lead to it bonking resulting in a drastic decrease in chuckability . Might throw our numbers off. Im looking for MAX CHUCKABILITY PER HOUR here.
Answer should be in Board Feet as this is the standard unit of measure in the lumber industry. Mahalo, and thank you wise sir.


This question is a simple matter of math and figuring out a few conversions. Should be easy.
A Woodchuck, also known as a land beaver, weighs 4-9 lbs.

We can use the average weight of 7 lbs for the woodchuck.
According to Calorie Burn Calculator, Most Accurate a 7 lb woodchuck would burn 4.8 calories in 15 minutes if it were engaged in chopping wood. Since healthstatus.com does not provide an option for chucking wood we can make an assumption that chopping and chucking wood would burn a similar amount of calories. Feel free to substitue any of the activities on the site and insert that caloric factor into the equation to fine tune the results to your liking.
4.8 calories is the same as .0191 BTU in 15 minutes or .075 BTU per hour. (British Thermal Units)
Now the other variable is the type of wood you are talking about. Different types of wood and different treatments have different mass. For example, properly seasoned oak firewood should have a moisture content below 20%. Freshly cut oak wood could be as high as 90%. So obviously the moisture content will play a large role in the amount of wood chuckable by the woodchuck. For this example we will use 20% moisture seasoned oak fire wood. Since woodchucks are native to the eastern part of north america we will use White Oak
A chord (128 cubic feet) of seasoned White Oak weights between 2880 – 3710 lbsWe can take the average weight and use 3295 lbs per chord or 3295 lbs/128 cubic feet.

One board foot = a board that is 12 in × 12 in × 1 in
One chord = 1536 board feet according to Unit Converter Pro
So now we can divide 1536 board feet into 3295 lbs and know that one board foot of Seasoned White Oak is 2.14 lbs/board foot. 3295/1536=2.14.
Now here is where the math gets fun.
We know a 7 lb woodchuck will burn .075 BTU’s chucking wood for an hour. We also know the wood he is chucking weighs 2.14 lbs per board foot. Now the question is how many BTU’s does it take to chuck 2.14 lbs, let’s say 1 foot?
According to Newton’s Second Law of Motion, the net force on an object is dependent on the mass of the object, and its acceleration during the movement.
Force = Mass x Acceleration
The common unit of force is the Newton (N). One Newton is the force required to accelerate one kilogram of mass at 1 meter per second per second.
1 N = 1kg m/s2, lets convert our wood chucking to metric for a bit to figure out this conversion.
.97 kg = 2.14 lbs.
So the woodchuck would have to exert .97 Newtons in order to move the wood one meter.
If we divide this by the number of feet in a meter 3.28 we get .29 Newtons.
Now we know it takes .29 newtons to move 2.14 lbs of seasond white oak 1 foot.
All we have to do now is figure out the number of BTU’s in .29 newton and a quick look at Unit Converter Pro tells us that .29 newton = .00027486696489 BTU.
Now we know that it takes .00027 BTU to move 2.14 lbs or one board foot of Seasoned White Oak 1 foot.
We also know that a 7 lb woodchuck burns .075 BTU per hour chucking wood. Finally we simply have to divide these two figures .00027486696489 BTU to move one board foot one foot/.075 BTU per hour and we get:
.0036 board feet per hour
So there is your answer Mr. Broemmel.

Answer: A woodchuck would chuck .0036 board feet per hour of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood! Or not!

UPDATE: Patrick. Your math would be correct if you were to apply “regular” math. I used “dairy” math for the final calculation. Diary math is a system that allows dairy farmer to continue operation for two or more years even though they are losing money every day.

I will go ahead and recalculate our final figure using regular math and provide that answer.
.075 / .00027486696489 = 272.859272

New Answer: A woodchuck would chuck 272.85 board feet per hour of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

However, once you add the OSHA required safety equipment, the 2 – 15 minute breaks per hour and a 30 minute lunch outlined in the Woodchuck Local 269 Union contract, it seems the actual number would be much less. Ill let you do the math on that one.

Also Deene Souza correctly pointed out the environmental restrictions plus the potential for animal rights activists protesting your operation make it highly unlikely any wood would get chucked at all. This is all, of course, theoretical!
I did the math and I came up with the same answer. In the USA, due to various government regulations and tax statutes, the amount of wood that a woodchuck could chuck is zero, providing of course if a woodchuck could chuck wood. The amount of wood that a woodchuck could upchuck is problematic at best under these circumstances.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
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#22
[video=youtube_share;3Q6Ti9xCX_M]http://youtu.be/3Q6Ti9xCX_M[/video]
 

Fenner

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2013
7,507
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#24
The worst thing about No Child Left Behind under Bush and now Common Core under Obama is that it ties federal funding to compliance. Some states have found that the money they lose by not complying is less than what they would have to spend to comply thus they actually come out ahead.

The thing I find interesting is that the US (on average) spends more per student for primary education than most other western countries yet comes up with a lower quality of education. If you look back not too far back in US history we ranked consistently in the top ten countries for quality of education but now we rank down in the 30's or 40's yet we're spending considerably more money even after adjusting for inflation.

The problem IMO falls in a couple of places.

First, our decline started not long after the Feds got involved in education and slowly but surely began removing control of education from local educators and placing it in the hands of Washington bureaucrats.

Second, teacher's unions forced the idea of tenure down school's throats. Once a teacher achieves tenure they can pretty much sit on their proverbial tail churning out a minimal education and be practically unfireable regardless of whether their students actually learn anything or not.

Third, (and probably the biggest problem) is that parents are considerably less involved in their children's education. More and more have developed the attitude that education should happen at school and that they shouldn't have to raise a hand to insure that their child is actually learning.

I've noticed that in those states that allow charter schools children from charter schools consistently score higher on standardized tests. Interestingly enough charter schools achieve this with the identical per student funding as regular public schools proving that money isn't the problem. The big difference is that charter schools typically don't offer tenure to teachers so they HAVE to perform in order to keep their job, and charter schools REQUIRE parent participation both at home and in school activities.

My kids go to a Charter school. The local school boards in the charter are constantly fighting us. Well one in particular. Our schools test scores for our state standardized test beat them almost every year.
 

Fenner

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2013
7,507
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#25
Definitely the biggest part. I have one kid that is having problems at school and one who excels in their studies and their behavior there. I am in touch with the good kid's teacher more than many parents are in touch with a problematic child's teacher. Whenever I talk to anyone from school, for any reason, I always ask, "How can I better partner with you on this?" It catches them off guard. Most parents tend to think the school is there to serve the parent and warehouse the child for the day. I go and sit in classrooms. I volunteer to help with things like (unfunded) art lessons, or setting up the book fair. I see part of my role as a parent to be assisting the school in educating my children. If along the way another child benefits, great. Not every kid is blessed with a father figure, so maybe I have made a small difference for them.
You have made a huge difference for them I'm sure. We might not be the one's going to school but it's up to us as parents to guide our kids and help through the process. It's also up to us to prioritize education in our homes. Not that it has to be the center of every conversation, but if we act like it's not important then that's the message we send our kids.

You're kids are blessed to have a strong advocate on their side.
 
C

Charcoal

Guest
#26
GBY, Fenner.
Even with causes that we are firmly committed to, it is *Highly*Valuable* to get periodic encouragement.
 

Fenner

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2013
7,507
111
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#27
I am a strong advocate for education. My parents were nice people but neither one of them graduated from high school, so they didn't see the big deal about school. Although they were very active when they found out I had some learning issues. They took me to a place that helped. Catching those problems early is so important. My son is having some trouble with the work this year so we are working with his teacher to find what he needs to help him.

I am lucky that my kids go to a school that has a lot of parental involvement. I just wish it was a K through 12 school.
 

JesusLives

Senior Member
Oct 11, 2013
14,551
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#28
I say chuck the wood and the wood chuck....Anyone visited the potato chip thread lately?
 

DaveTheRave

Senior Member
May 28, 2014
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#29
I have a better question...

How much wood could Chuck Wood's wood chuck if Chuck Wood's wood, Chuck, could and would chuck wood?
 
Jan 19, 2013
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#32
My Children will start getting homework next week. I expect the title question and many other in rhyme questions as we start out the year with our lovely common core.

For example. Susan worked hard in the field all day and picked 2 dozen flowers. Tim didn't work as hard and picked only 5 flowers. Now if Susan were a real friend she'd give Tim some of her flowers. However Susan is a capitalist pig and won't share her flowers with Tim. So who has more flowers?

OK the questions aren't worded like that, they leave out Capitalist Pig, but they might as well throw it in. I don't like common core, you might have picked that up by now.
Good grief!
 
Jan 19, 2013
11,909
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#34
Who has the most flowers? The evil landowner who makes people pick flowers. Everything should be free. :D
Like the guy who said he thought all the wealth should be distributed to every one equally,

to which someone replied that in two years the wealth would be back in the same hands again,

and he said, "Oh, no, I mean to redistribute it the first of every month."