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LukeM

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From: England

Joined: 2016-06-03

Posts: 3,009

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Re: question on paper stacking

btw what happened to your A in that above equation?

The area was canceled out, because the energy dissipated and the energy recieved both scale according to it

I mean, i still think the internal combustion would be an issue well before your stack was heated up by the sun's light.

I really dont know about that, that would probably be more chemistry than physics (if it can combust in space / what other things will cause it to fall apart)

how would the weight of the stack affect where it was positioned? if we were out in a cornfield, would the papers (assuming they wouldn't fall over) settle a hole in the ground? Also, since we're assuming these papers won't fall over, let's just pretend they're one continuous block. Given that an object's center of gravity follows a smooth curve and that earth rotates, would the giant block be somehow spun off of Earth?  "A satellite in such an orbit is at an altitude of approximately 35,786 km (22,236 mi) above mean sea level" [0]. Meanwhile, your stack of 10^29 sheets at .1mm thickness would be 2.3984928 × 10^22 miles tall [1]. I bring this orbit up because they're essentially the height where they aren't being pulled up or down... well, they are, but they're falling around. Here, you're so far away that you'd be falling away from the Earth... your stack would fly away.

I was just ignoring as much as possible about the actual feasability of this, just to see if I could get an answer

Does your conductance formula mean that the entire stack is engulfed? Would that mean that Earth itself would be engulfed? I mean, if the conductance had to get all the way down to Earth to vaporize the whole stack, that'd be a lot of melting mass.
now for some reason I'm assuming that we have paper that is falling to earth. I guess that's if the whole stack reached melting point? Or perhaps if we assume regular paper again?

I was trying to get the lowest possible height for the top sheet to melt, with basically perfect conditions for everything else
Im not really sure what would actually happen once it melted... maybe it would just solidify slightly further down, or maybe it would continue melting

1 sheet of printer paper: 4.5 grams ([2])
number of pages below geosynchronous orbit:  35785400000
( I still don't know what the area of a sheet is, so we're just assuming a page of printer paper now?)

161,034,300 kg of paper below the fall-to-earth height (if my physics is solid) -- but, earth is 5.972 × 10^24 kg [1] so it's really not as damaging as I thought.

earth's surface area: 196.9 million mi² [1]. Surface area of all those pages: 833.464583 square miles -- so we could do some damage, but not a whole lot. We could cover New York (304.6 mi²) twice [1] but I mean that's just new york right
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit
1: google search (built-in conversion tool!)
2: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/12

Im surprised that it would do so little damage... It seems to me that you are correct (I am tired though, so I might be missing something)

I did just think though, maybe the 9 ish pages was the answer I was looking for, and its so low because I ignored the atmosphere... That is probably it
I guess the large number might be so high because it would have to be really far away from the sun as it has so far to conduct the heat away

In that case, I think your answer is 8 or 9, if you leave out the atmosphere, unless im still missing something else

hummerz5

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From: wait I'm not a secret mod huh

Joined: 2015-08-10

Posts: 5,853

Re: question on paper stacking

8 or 9 sheets stacked on Earth would melt? Maybe I'm tired and missing something. I can't see how atmosphere would change that much?

edit: thanks for lengthy response. was read, was agreed.

uh, but yeah, I saw your other number and walked on because I didn't get it

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thanks HG, HG, HG, HG! anatoly, zumza! zoey!

LukeM

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From: England

Joined: 2016-06-03

Posts: 3,009

Website

Re: question on paper stacking

8 or 9 sheets stacked on Earth would melt? Maybe I'm tired and missing something. I can't see how atmosphere would change that much?

edit: thanks for lengthy response. was read, was agreed.

uh, but yeah, I saw your other number and walked on because I didn't get it

I'll check it tomorrow, maybe using a method without quadratic equations just to get an idea of what sort of range the number should be in

Onjit

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Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 9,709

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Re: question on paper stacking

According to all known laws of physics,

there is no way a piece of paper should be able to stack.

The paper, of course, stacks anyway,

because paper doesn't care what humans think.

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:.|:;

HeyNK

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Joined: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,318

Re: question on paper stacking

Actually, molecular FORCES are different then physical FORCES. Molecular forces are due to the charges of subatomic particles, which are NOT a component of physics. Are you sure you read the OP?

Raphe9000

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Joined: 2015-03-16

Posts: 1,864

Re: question on paper stacking

a lot

hope that helps <3

Pingohits

Banned

From: aids lizard

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 7,591

Re: question on paper stacking

Molecular forces are due to the charges of subatomic particles, which are NOT a component of physics.

last i heard, quantum physics are indeed a branch of physics; what are you rambling about? did you mean to say classical physics?

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Abelysk

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Re: question on paper stacking

How many papers does it take to get to the center of a paper????

Master1

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From: Crait

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 4,452

Re: question on paper stacking

but if you are correct, the answer would be less than 2 because 2  will cause it to melt and i said without it melting

oh i misread the OP

in that case, you can only stack 1 piece of paper without it melting.

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hummerz5

Member

From: wait I'm not a secret mod huh

Joined: 2015-08-10

Posts: 5,853

Re: question on paper stacking

but if you are correct, the answer would be less than 2 because 2  will cause it to melt and i said without it melting

oh i misread the OP

in that case, you can only stack 1 piece of paper without it melting.

assuming whatever assumptions gkaby was making, we still don't have the assumption that we're dealing wholly in integers... what of your rational numbers? or imaginary?!?!?!

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thanks HG, HG, HG, HG! anatoly, zumza! zoey!