Life is AWESOME!!!!!

Hello Everyone. It has been a while and I am sorry. It has been a long couple of weeks and I have been nothing but a slacker. I have about 4 weeks left of school and for about a week of that it is Thanksgiving. Sweet. Recently I watched Jackass the movie. I found it amusing and yet strangely stupid. Ok really stupid. I took a test last Tuesday and got a 95 on it. The test was on Ultrasonic testing level II- Shear wave. Now I would like to take the time to post an email sent to me by one of Harpers friends as well as a response.

Hi,

I’m a friend of Harper’s, and he was telling me about your diving job.

We began to wonder a couple of things about diving.

For instance, if you had to fight a monkey underwater, assuming that the

Monkey was a well-trained diver (he’s a natural in the water and very athletic), and the Monkey was equipped with a knife and the necessary skills to use it, who would win this battle? Also, if you needed a weapon to even the playing field, could you use a really sharp fireman?s axe?

Also, have you ever been attacked at a depth of 300 feet or more by a polar bear, and if so, what did you do to survive?

Thanks!

Scott

On the first question about the monkey, the monkey would obviously win due to the fact that he is very athletic and has a knife. Now adding the “really sharp fireman?s ax” into the equation forces one to consider the hydrodynamics and weight of the ax. Archimedes Principle states that the amount of water displaced by an object is equal to its buoyancy (i.e. if you get in a bathtub full of water, water will spill out if you catch all the water that exited the pool the weight of that water is equal to the force buoying you up.) Imagine if you will placing said fire ax into a pool of water. It would only displace a small amount of water, so it would be very negatively buoyant. So if both the monkey and I were neutrally buoyant (displacing the same amount of water as you weigh) fighting in midwinter, then having the fire ax would be a further disadvantage to me. However if I wrapped the fire ax in neoprene to make it neutrally buoyant, I would be able to wield it more effectively. The only problem left is hydrodynamics. I would have to swing the axe moving both my arm and the ax through water, where as the monkey would only have to move his arm since a knife as a weapon is pretty much an extension of the arm. If the monkey was using a standard military issue special forces k-bar knife I would probably be dead in about 30 secs +or - 5 secs.

No I have never been attacked by a polar bear in 300 feet of water or otherwise. However I do not think that a polar bear can even dive down to 300 feet. I might be wrong though. That is all. I cannot wait to see people over thanksgiving. I love you Sarah so much. Goodbye