noise."Science! · 2:56pm Aug 4th, 2013
So, in the interest of determining how much ponies actually weigh, I decided to conduct an experiment.
The concept was simple. I could easily determine the difference in volume between an IRL horse and a pony, using displacement of water and of rice (obviously, I used the rice first).
The horse is a Haflinger mare by Safari Ltd. Inspection of the selection on offer yielded this one as the most appropriate, especially since it's a breed with pretty distinct characteristics, and it's a breed that's designed to be pretty good at most anything--like the Jeep of horses (as a side note, their Clydesdale stallion was also 100% accurate). For the pony, I picked AppleJack, since she's an all-around work pony, and she's honest, so that's a plus.
First, I measured the two at the withers.
Haflinger was 2.4"/61.1mm tall.
Applejack was 1.75"/45.3mm tall.
The rice experiment demonstrated that the volume of the Haflinger was 25ml greater than the volume of AJ.
**given that I didn't have a vibrating table, I expected these results to be somewhat inaccurate.
The water experiment demonstrated that the volume of the Haflinger was also 25ml greater than the volume of AJ.
Specifically, the water level was 900ml with Haflinger, 875ml with AJ, and 850ml with nopony in it.
Thus, the Haflinger has a volume of 50ml, and AJ of 25ml.
**it's worth noting that the brushable's bodies are hollow, and there's a through-hole for the tail. I didn't see bubbles, so AJ's barrel probably didn't fill with water, but that's why I wanted to try the rice first.
IRL, a Haflinger stands between 13.2 and 15 hands (137-152 cm; 54-60"), and weighs between 317-450kg (700-1000 lbs).
So, in summary, we have a Haflinger with a volume of 50ml that is 61.1mm tall; IRL it would be let's say 140cm tall.
We have a pony with a volume of 25ml that is 45.3mm tall; IRL it would be about 70cm (28") tall (note, measured at the withers)
Now, it's my birthday, and I don't feel like calculating all this out yet, so anyone who's interested is welcome to have a crack at it. We'll assume that the density of a pony is about the same as an IRL horse, and that Equestrian gravity and Earth gravity are the same. The question is: how much does AJ actually weigh?
**It's probably going to be a range (as well it should be), since my measuring cups are only graduated in 50ml increments, and the mane of both horse and pony will skew the results. If someone wants to repeat the experiment with better equipment, have at it.
Conclusion:
Applejack should be somewhere between 48–69 kg (106–152 lb)
Science!!
I'm not sure this experiment was very 'error-proof', if you will. Bravo none the less.
1261241
It's by no means an error-proof experiment. I lack proper measuring equipment, for starters. However, debate regarding pony weight rages across the interwebs, and fanfiction seems to have reached no consensus on weight (I've seen 40# to 200#, or 20kg to 100kg in fictions recently). I know IRL Shetland ponies are somewhere around 500#, although of course Equestrian ponies are shorter and differently proportioned.
Given my drive for authenticity in my story, and the fact this experiment hasn't been done before, I felt it was worth a try. Once I've done the math, I'll at least have a rough number, and the method I used to GET that number; I feel that even if the methodology is not as accurate as one might like, it's better than a guess.
1261271
Well, you're the author so you can pretty much make it anything.
happy birthday by the way
1261271
I'm not sure what math you still need to do here. If the scenario is as described below:
...Then we have an Earth Pony that is about half the mass of a Haflinger, right?
I'm guessing you still need to scale things properly. Don't know where your math is on that so I'm not sure how to help.
At any rate, just glancing at the models in the picture already shows that one clearly has considerably greater volume. And if an MLP Pony actually had a somewhat realistic body structure (like not having cantaloupe-sized eyes and comically-huge heads), they'd have even lower volume.
...AJ's hat doesn't come off on that model, does it? It doesn't look like it would be removable from the picture...
The most reliable (but more time consuming and destructive) way to determine their volumes would be to melt them down, but this doesn't work as you said AJ was hollow inside.
———Regrettable.
Okay, I changed my mind and did the volumetric scaling using the square-cube principle.
Haflinger:
140 cm/61.1 mm = 22.913257
Cubed for volumetric scale = 12029.857386
12029.857386*(50 ml) = 601.493 L
Density = (317–450 kg/601.493 L) = 0.527–0.748 kg/L
Earth Pony:
70 cm/45.3 mm = 15.452538
Cubed for volumetric scale = 3689.771834
3689.771834*(25 ml) = 92.244 L
Mass = (0.527–0.748 kg/L)*92.244 L = 48.6125–68.9985 kg
Applejack should be somewhere between 48–69 kg (106–152 lb)
So about what I originally thought—within the range of average human masses.
1261584
Actually, it does. And she was hatless for the experiment.
Even if they were solid, I'm not sure that would be reliable, unless I know the properties of the plastics used--do they expand or contract when melted? (I worked in a lot of plastics factories when I was younger, and they all had different properties). If they were both made of metal (say, lead), that would work really well.
I was going to correct you, that mass is cubed, but I see that you discovered that before I could reply! And now we have a nice, scientific answer. Which is as it should be. Now whenever anyone says what a pony should weigh . . . we have SCIENCE!
1262082
Ah. Can't tell in the picture. It looks well-attached.
...It's also completely the wrong color, because apparently HASBRO DON'T GIVE A FUCK.
...That is true. I'm a little ashamed of myself for missing something that simple.
Well, I guess it goes to show use that I don't often melt plastics or deal with theoretical problems involving the thermodynamics of melting plastics.
Ah, I never make a mistake, actually. You'll notice that I said:
and I additionally mentioned (not directly) that I did no scaling work. But besides that...
Volume is cubed, and the milliliter is a unit of volume. Since the Pony figure is roughly half the volume of the horse figure (25 mL vs 50 mL), this implies it is also roughly half the mass (assuming they are of roughly equal density), correct?
...Well okay, only so long as they were of the same scale ratio as the figurines. But since the figurines aren't properly to scale, it happens that the Earth Pony's volume should be about 15% that of the Haflinger horse.
Additionally, I would like to amend something:
It's completely possible that they could have equivalent or greater volume considering they would be longer and thicker, much like the ones in this image:
fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/191/b/b/the_apples_by_earthsong9405-d6cuh2t.png
The eyes are still unrealistically large, but they're not RIDICULOUSLY ENORMOUS anymore so I can ignore that.
1262082
By the way I shamelessly rebloged and broadcasted this in the Humans in Equestria forums.
——LOL
1262200
True indeed.
1262140
To be fair, I read your first post kind of in a hurry--I actually spent most of the day on the road after I posted. And this is why I'm glad that someone who's actually good at math did the legwork, rather than me. I'm really bad at math, which is why I decided after my first semester in college that an engineering degree wasn't for me.
1262227
NO JOHN, YOU ARE THE MATHEMATICS
AND THEN JOHN WAS A CALCULATOR
LOL LOL LOL I'm silly
1262244
OH LORD WHY DID YOU BRING BACK MEMORIES OF THAT FIC!? WHICH IN TURN REMINDS ME OF THAT-ONE-BADFIC-OF-HARRY-POTTER.
1262300
Because it was hilarious.
1262317
I'm suddenly reminded of when, while talking to someone about the same issue of MLP's sun not obeying certain laws (like gravity), I jokingly suggested that it might be as close and small as the moon... and also a neutron star.
I then proceeded to calculate the gravitational force between the Earth-sized planet and the moon-sized neutron star, and found out that it would be somewhere between 60-100 times greater than the force exerted between the real sun and Earth, depending on the density of a neutron star. And that's certainly not mentioning just how much stronger it is than the pull of gravity exerted by the moon; talk about some insane tidal forces...
———We both LOL'd.
1262404
Problem: Tidal forces when the sun didn't rise on the Summer Solstice due to Nightmare Moon. I doubt you could stop the rotation of a planet in even a 12 hour period without massive earthquakes and worldwide nigh Mach speed winds.
1262404
If Nightmare Moon hadn't stopped the sunrise, that's totally the theory I'd go for. [Presumably, the poor bastards on the other side of Equestria were cursing the eternal noon.]
1262421 1262424
My leading theory: the sun and moon of "My Little Planet" aren't even physical objects in the first place. Thus, the problems of gravity (orbiting behavior not taking place) and speed of light (it takes over a second for light from the moon to reach the planet and 8.5 minutes for light from the sun to reach the planet, yet Celestia moved the sun only a second after she used magic) don't even apply to them. Instead they're some kind of weird magical phenomena. Perhaps there is no "space" in MLPverse and the planet is the only physical place that exists. The firmament is literally a spherical barrier above them with magical lights attached to it.
Of course, the admiral of baked breakfast buns already knows this.
1262418
Unless Equestria straddles the equator, she wouldn't have 12 hours to stop the rotation on the solstice. Depending on their latitude, it could be a lot less: the 45th parallel crosses through Michigan, a couple of hours north of where I live; Wikipedia says the sun is visible for 15 hours and 37 minutes there during the summer solstice.
1262432
While this theory doesn't work for my fic, it could tie in neatly with the large amount of Greek mythology MLP already has.
Maybe originally,
HeliosCelestia had to fly her sun chariot across the sky, but with thousands of years of practice, she can send it on its way telekenetically. The energy equations still suck (unless geothermal activity keeps Equestria warm).1262486
I've thought about it because of Celestia wanking, especially in the TCB setting.
My favorite example is when a certain TCB author had Celestia casually neutralize a ~6 petaton nuclear device capable of razing the entire northern hemisphere of the Earth and ending all life on the planet from point blank range the very instant it went off.
LOLWUT?
When did Celestia even do anything remotely suggesting this kind of power in the show?
1262469
Less time just means the consequences would be even worse. Stopping the planet's rotation in a second gives us nearly hypersonic chaotic wind storms across the planet, which is really bad news. Like, "lol, everything on the surface of the planet is destroyed" bad news.
1262562
Oh, totally agreed. I think the mach force winds would be less of a problem than the magnitude 50 earthquakes (although it's possible the friction could set the atmosphere on fire, which would probably also be bad).
And anypony who survived the first few hours would have to face a world which made what the dinosaurs faced look like a walk in the park.
1262578
I'm assuming you're just throwing a number around and not actually talking about that number seriously, given that's about 1.5×10^55 petatons (TNT) worth of energy. And also given that one foe, the energy produced by a supernova, is only about 2.4×10^19 petatons worth of energy...
On a fun and completely hypothetical note, I think an explosion on the order of 10^55 petatons is enough to scatter a small galaxy.
Oxygen and nitrogen don't burn. Oxygen is an oxidizer, not a fuel, and nitrogen is inert in terms of combustion. However, everything picked up by near hypersonic winds would probably be incinerated, so your fantasies of setting the sky on fire aren't too far off!
Yeah, basically horrible shit would happen and nothing would survive it.
1262581
She literally thinks Celestia and Luna are goddesses for unjustifiable reasons. Such as the fact that the presentation of the story of Nightmare Moon is similar to stories of gods on Earth.
1262602
So it was a bit of hyperbole.
Still, according to XKCD,
, there's a lot of mass moving at a goodly clip that Luna stops.
Of course, you're right that the atomosphere wouldn't 'burn.' (although I remember that there is one reaction where oxygen 'burns,' and the other chemical is the oxidizer, but I don't remember what it is). Still, it would be moving fast enough that the friction would probably set fire to everything on the ground. (EDIT: as you said)
1262630
Well, there's four of them now, so it might work. Especially if they could mine enough unobtanium to build a four-pony-powered nonsenseoleum phlebotinum ray, the most powerful MacGuffin known to
mankindponykind.Also worth a note: either Discord was causing mass hallucinations, or he can move the celestial bodies, too.
1262648
Really depends on the headcanon. If alicorns are immortal, than yes. It might take her a few centuries to grow a new body, but she'd be ok in the end.
If they're not immortal . . . well, ponies would have to invent DNA analysis to find her, and even that might not work. If I wasn't tired, I'd probably remember what types of radiation nuclear bombs give off, and in what order, and what they do to a human (or pony) body.
1262629
Oh yeah. Much smaller energies have done that much. Like the Chicxulub KT impact event that killed the dinosaurs. It would have sent burning ejecta across nearly all of North and South America that would have set everything flammable ablaze. If you had somehow managed survived the thermal radiation from the massive fireball, the shockwave strong enough to flatten forests and destroy buildings even as far away as the middle of the USA, and the seismic activity from the impact, then you'd probably die from the rain of superheated earth. And if you survived that, you'd still have to deal with a massive tsunami if you were near an ocean.
———Here's a calculator for impact events. Have fun.
1262661
It's all the cat's fault. Stupid cat.
1262661
I died. Apparently, 1 km away from a 10 km diameter iron rock travelling at 72 km/sec and hitting at a 90 degree angle wasn't far enough away.
1262671
LOL of course not. I would think you'd be in the cratering zone and would get turned into superheated ejecta. Try 100+ km.
Actually, try something the size of Ceres, about 1000 km across. Then try something the size of the Moon, 3800 km across.
1262672
Every time I traveled in Oregon Trail, I died of dysentery. It's a lose/lose situation.
Still, for that last second or so of life, it would be one hell of a view. Like the tornado I watched forming until my boss made me go back into the building and crouch under a table.
This is what smart people do with their time.
Not that I'm complaining.
I feel like ponies are probably a lot denser than Earth animals, given their feats of strength, endurance and food consumption. No idea how you'd calculate that, though. There's also the question of whether Pinkie's party cannon and other paraphernalia contribute to her mass.
Also, I hear pony heights are a whole different endless debate; apples, cows and eight-foot candy canes notwithstanding.
1267714
That's clearly open to debate, and any author can choose to write a story as he or she sees fit. However--Ponies float. If they didn't, it's pretty unlikely that 'getting into the water' would be a recreational activity. One can debate back and forth whether or not they can swim (IRL, most mammals can, after a fashion), but they almost certainly float. This means that they're less dense than water.
Now, you don't have to accept this. What if, you (the author) say, 'water' in Equestria is really sulfuric acid? That's fine. It's your story. But a human isn't going to survive in that environment very long, not without some good protective gear.
That's quite true. If one makes the assumption that my brushable AJ is an accurately-scaled representation of a Pony, than the dimensions stay the same. Want to make Ponies 200 cm tall at the withers? Plug that into the equation and do the math. 20 cm tall? Same thing. The Haflinger is the 'standard;' scaling and weight can be calculated from there.
If you (the author) do want to make the ponies far less dense or more dense than an IRL horse, that's doable, too: the experiment simply compares volumes, with the exemplar height of 70 cm for the pony and the presumed density of an IRL horse. Given that density of various material is readily avalible online (scientific sites, MSDS sheets), you can calculate from the measurements how much the Pony would weigh if it was made out of marshmallow or lead for any given height you care to calculate (always remember to do the whole range, though, to account for minor errors in measurement and natural variations between ponies).
Math is fun.
*One assumes that Pinkie keeps her party cannon and other supplies in a conveniently close-to-hoof pocket dimension, much like a bag of holding. Extra dimensions never count towards encumbrance; therefore, they weigh nothing.
1267827
One should assume that Pinkie is made of 60% refined Cartoonium, and thus for the sake of Rule of Funny regularly does things that cannot be reconciled logically with the rest of her universe. As any of the Mane Six would tell you, "it's Pinkie Pie, don't think about it too hard"; in other words, don't treat obviously non-serious joke feats as though they were serious parts of the setting.
1262300
Here, maybe this will help.
Oh, I remember when I was idle enough to do stuff like this. Now, excuse me while I go curl up in the corner and cry
I have to agree with you about the height measurements, but there are too many variables to truly find out the actual weight of a pony. I know you measured and got the sizes of the toys, but there are things like the difference in leg and body sizes, which means there is a muscle-ratio difference. There are also the different kinds of ponies which has a good chance of having different statistics. In the end, there is also the magic issue. An Applejack with magic is good deal stronger than a normal horse/pony, but without magic, she could be a good deal less.
These are just some of my thoughts on how it would be impossible to even get close to the actual weight of the ponies, but you can ignore all of the above if you want to.
1927256
But that's the beautiful thing about showing my work (well, Permanent Temporary's work) in the comments: density for one or all species can be factored in, different heights or densities can be factored in--whatever the author desires. Do you want pegasi to have a hollow bone structure like birds? Figure out the density of a bird compared to a horse, and plug that number into the equation. Hundred-foot-tall ponies? Plug that in. A pony having the same density as an Abrams tank? You can do that, too.
1261271
1261584
A question came up in an RPG that I'm playing and I was hoping this blog would help me provide a somewhat justifiable measurement for one of my characters. Alas I cannot fill in enough of the variables at this time. Any suggestions for figuring out the physical dimensions of a Wolf Spider with the mass of an Indian Tiger? (I'm not trying to go completely insane and compare to the much larger Siberians.)
My current "guesstimate" is 5-6 feet long for the actual body and maybe 15-18 feet long in total.
Ooh, that's tough. If you knew how many spiders weighed a pound, and how big a volume a pound of live spiders was, you could come up with a reasonable guess. I would bet a cricket is close to the same density as a spider, and you can buy them as a food for pets.
2028462
Real rough guess? 41 to 57 times bigger than a real wolf spider.
There are 700 crickets per kilogram. An Indian tiger weighs between 100kg (small female) and 260kg (large male). That works out to 70,000 to 182,000 crickets. Taking the cube root of those numbers, I get 41-57.
If my theory is correct, the giant wolf spider would be between 41 and 57 times longer, taller, etc. than a cricket-sized wolf spider. This is assuming my formula OS correct,
2028665
Good enough for me. (Glad you knew about the crickets! I was at a loss on how to find/measure a wolf spider.) And about what I was guesstimating. There's a reason beast shapeshifters are supernaturally terrifying.
-Biggest wolf spiders are something like 1" for body and another 2" with legs. 3" x 57 = 171" Or 14.25 feet long.
2028910
I actually had to look up cricket weight, but figured it would be easy to find, since they're sold as food for people and animals.
2028462 2028665 (linked to Biscuit for no reason)
Well, I can't exactly answer that, partially because you haven't been specific enough. There are about 1300 different species of wolf spider though found throughout the world, so the size and weight would depend on which species of wolf spider one has in mind, as well as other biological factors such as diet, sex, age, etc. The many genera of wolf spider range in body size (legs not included) from less than 1mm to about 35mm across. Although they are fairly big by North American standards, they do not weigh all that much. I know that the weight of the average mouse is typically between of 12 to 30 g, so the spider should weigh significantly less—so let's say that a large Wolf Spider (35mm) has an estimated average weight of 4–8 g, just for the sake of this experiment. Now, the weight of a male Indian Bengal tiger ranges from 180–260 kg, while the weight of a female ranges from 100–160 kg. The smallest possible combination above (8 g to 100 kg) gives us a body size of almost 4 meters (over 13 feet), while the largest possible combination above (4 g to 260 kg) gives us a body size of almost 9 meters (nearly 30 feet).
Note that this is just the body size, and excludes the length span of the legs!
Answer: The spider's length is possibly twice your current estimate, at least! Of course, this is assuming all of my numbers are correct, and that we're scaling from a large Wolf Spider, but still. That's already an absurdly huge spider.
Reality: The spider's physical dimensions wouldn't matter, since it would have literally been crushed by its own weight! Square-cube law is a real bitch like that.
That is to say, a object that is scaled up by a factor of two has a length, width, and depth twice that of the original, an area that is four times that of the original (this affects strength, since it is determined by cross sectional area of muscle), volume and mass are eight times that of the original (meaning the scaled-up object, if living, is proportionately half as strong as the original: 4/8 = 1/2), while things like the inherent properties of materials (strength, toughness, hardness, density, etc.)—such as chitin—remain unchanged during the scaling. See how this might end up becoming a problem? Of course, fantasy ignores this law all the time, so you don't care, but... I still wanted to bring it up.
2029350
Based on my cricket calculations, I think you're overestimating the weight of a wolf spider, since a cricket weighs just over 1 gram, according to wiki answers. Of course, that just makes the final result bigger.... No idea which species of cricket, though. In all honesty, I wasn't able to find the weight of any species of wolf spider. Wiki answers says an adult wolf spider weighs 700 pounds, which would be terrifying if it were true.
2029425
I'm using experience. A large 35mm spider would probably feel heftier than a dime or nickel in your palm, hence 4+ grams. For context, 4 grams is approximately the mass of the average 16mm six-sided spot die.
Yeah, it's probably a high estimate, but I'm fairly confident that such a large specimen of Wolf Spider would at least weigh more than 2 grams (which is less than the weight of a penny). Especially considering that it dwarfs the cricket (the common field cricket is around 20mm long), which is supposedly more than 1.4 grams on average.
2029464
For his purposes, these are probably close-enough numbers. I'm sure the actual weight of a wolf spider is out there somewhere, it's just finding it...