How many elephants? (opens in new tab)

(howmanyelephants.co.uk)

34 pointstagawa6mo ago19 comments

19 comments

I thought at first it would represent everything in elephants; elephant volumes, elephant hides, elephant-years &c.

Author here. I did consider doing that. But ended up using elephants for height and mass. I didn't think the volume or area of an elephant was a very useful comparison!

hermitcrab5mo ago

But I have added elephant comparisons for speed (charging), time (average lifespan) and energy (food consumption).

baubino5mo ago

Me too. That was the reason I clicked. Now I’m disappointed to not know how many elephants.

hermitcrab5mo ago

I have added a note at the bottom of the page.

dahart5mo ago

I entered 4e10 for Energy | Kilocalories, and got:

=> 0.914x the recommended daily food consumption for a male human adult (1.09x smaller)

Is this a bug, or am I not eating nearly enough?? ;)

zamadatix5mo ago

It looks like they defined that stat internally as "1.046e7", which would be a reasonable number assuming Joules. Elsewhere it defines Kilocalories as "0.000239006"... but I'm guessing they meant it the other way around (i.e. "4184" not "1/4184") based on how they use the data in the functions.

Sure enough, if you do 4e10/4184^2 you get right on target. I think other things in the energy category may have the same "wrong conversion direction" bug as well.

hermitcrab5mo ago

Oops. The energy values were indeed inverted. Now fixed. Thanks.

Also fixed a few other rogue values. We had the mass of a great white shark as 8.9e20 Kg, rather than 8.9e2 Kg. That would be quite some shark.

1 more reply

Amorymeltzer5mo ago

>the height of a Greg Davies

I think (little) Alex Horne made this

anArbitraryOne5mo ago

1 Electron volts = 29.8 x the energy released Tsar bomba 69.5 x the energy released by convert 1 Kg of mass to energy. Something is way off, and it's not just the singular/plural of "volt"

hermitcrab5mo ago

Yes, the x -> Joule values were inverted. <blush> . Now fixed.

floam5mo ago

I was surprised it didn’t have a good 1:1 for certain units.

Like a meter, is really easily imagined as the height of a doorknob on a door.

eightnoteight5mo ago

first i thought the website would say how many elephants left in the world (like white rhinos)

hermitcrab5mo ago

It does now.

derscodes5mo ago

Should not 1440 minutes just be a day not 12 movies lol.

hermitcrab5mo ago

There are plenty of other ways to translate between standard units (e.g. minutes -> days).

derscodes5mo ago

oh I get you, that's not the purpose of this, it's for non standard. Makes sense.

1 more reply

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19 comments

signorovitch5mo ago

I thought at first it would represent everything in elephants; elephant volumes, elephant hides, elephant-years &c.

hermitcrab5mo ago

Author here. I did consider doing that. But ended up using elephants for height and mass. I didn't think the volume or area of an elephant was a very useful comparison!

hermitcrab5mo ago

But I have added elephant comparisons for speed (charging), time (average lifespan) and energy (food consumption).

baubino5mo ago

Me too. That was the reason I clicked. Now I’m disappointed to not know how many elephants.

hermitcrab5mo ago

I have added a note at the bottom of the page.

dahart5mo ago

I entered 4e10 for Energy | Kilocalories, and got:

=> 0.914x the recommended daily food consumption for a male human adult (1.09x smaller)

Is this a bug, or am I not eating nearly enough?? ;)

zamadatix5mo ago

Sure enough, if you do 4e10/4184^2 you get right on target. I think other things in the energy category may have the same "wrong conversion direction" bug as well.

hermitcrab5mo ago

Oops. The energy values were indeed inverted. Now fixed. Thanks.

Also fixed a few other rogue values. We had the mass of a great white shark as 8.9e20 Kg, rather than 8.9e2 Kg. That would be quite some shark.

1 more reply

Amorymeltzer5mo ago

>the height of a Greg Davies

I think (little) Alex Horne made this

anArbitraryOne5mo ago

1 Electron volts = 29.8 x the energy released Tsar bomba 69.5 x the energy released by convert 1 Kg of mass to energy. Something is way off, and it's not just the singular/plural of "volt"

hermitcrab5mo ago

Yes, the x -> Joule values were inverted. <blush> . Now fixed.

floam5mo ago

I was surprised it didn’t have a good 1:1 for certain units.

Like a meter, is really easily imagined as the height of a doorknob on a door.

eightnoteight5mo ago

first i thought the website would say how many elephants left in the world (like white rhinos)

hermitcrab5mo ago

It does now.

derscodes5mo ago

Should not 1440 minutes just be a day not 12 movies lol.

hermitcrab5mo ago

There are plenty of other ways to translate between standard units (e.g. minutes -> days).

derscodes5mo ago

oh I get you, that's not the purpose of this, it's for non standard. Makes sense.

1 more reply

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