[gurps] Golem volume

[Chuk Goodin]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn at ihug.co.nz> wrote:

> Emily Smirle wrote:
>
>> There's a problem with assuming that "people float, therefore their
>> density must be 1.0-ish".
>>
>> People *FLOAT*, therefore they are less dense than water. Things that are
>> AS DENSE as water are neutrally boyant, and do not float. Nor do they sink.
>>
>> Humans, on the other hand, bob around at the surface for approximate
>> values of "surface" due to varying density between say, the upper torso
>> (full of lungs) vs lower torso (interesting variations in fat distribution)
>> vs limbs (lack of sinuses, digestive tract, OR lungs) vs head (sinuses, the
>> void of the mouth and throat, etc).
>>
>> All the numbers I have suggest that humans have a density roughly around
>> 0.75 kg/liter or 47 lbs/cu. fo. and this certainly seems consistent with
>> observed behavior, along with being comfortably in the "denser than many
>> types of wood, but less dense than notoriously dense woods" range.
>>
>>  People who exhale often sink, or are neutral in boyancy. I probably
> wouldn't now (too much fat), but certainly used to do this, and one on my
> cousins, being unusually lean, was denser than water even with a lungful of
> air.


Yes, I used to sink even with semi-inflated lungs (if I took in a deep
breath I could float just under the surface) -- older and fatter now and
haven't tried it in years.

-- 
chuk