MarkB
Legend
Reminds me of an old (possibly apocryphal) story of the scientists who came up with ridiculous calculations of the amount of calories kangaroos must need to consume in order to hop around everywhere. They based their working on a simple calculation of how much energy would be required to lift a mass equal to that of an adult kangaroo up to their average bounce height, multiplied by their observed number of bounces within a specified period.I've seen that or something similar to it. He just uses leveridge, balance points and swivels to manipulate 25 ton blocks by himself.
A lot of very intelligent people have got no idea about how things work in the real world. Doesn't been they're stupid just outside their specialty they're no better than anyone else.
All very neat, but totally failing to take into account that kangaroos' legs operate as the equivalent of leaf-springs, storing up most of that energy on the downward arc to be re-used in the next upward bound.