A brother of mine sent in the following correction to my admittedly sloppy, rounded up, calculations regarding the housing amenities of Blessed Waldo:
A tree with a circumference of 50 feet has an interior area, assuming walls
of zero thickness, of 198.9437 square feet (not 220 square feet). Assuming
a more realistic wall thickness of 2 feet, the area of a hollow tree 50 feet
in circumference would be 111.51 square feet, which is a little small even
by New York standards. (Of course, since saints live to suffer, so the
smaller, the better, of course!)
Even if the walls were only a foot thick, the interior space would be
152.0853 square feet, and the tree’s structural soundness might be in question.
Just something to ponder.
BTW, the only way the inside of a hollow tree with a circumference with 50
feet could have an area of 220 square feet would be for the walls to be
infinitely thin and for π to be equal to 3.4741, which is 110.5841% of the
real value.
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2 comments:
Well, if you had a 10x11 NYC apartment, that 10x11 wouldn't include the loo. I assume that in the saint's HQ it didn't either. AND it would be all natural, no asbestos, no leaching gases, no stairs, no elevator, nobody else using your hot water, no hot water heater to break down. As for walls being one or two feet thick? If the tree is tall enough to stand up in, I would assume a hollow tree of maybe 20 feet in height -- I would think a foot thick would be safe. And, shoot, this was a long time ago; these guys were shorter than we are.
I love the calculations of the hollow tree, and the speculations on whether it was possible to live in such a dwelling...I remember, as a child, my grandmother read from a book called THE HOLLOW TREE,
about several animals who lived in a tree (I don't remember what kind it was)...so clearly this notion of making one's home in the safe harbor of an arbor has a long history...
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