I was told there would be no math

Remember those days in high school when you sat in various math classes thinking, "Will I actually use this stuff?" There are really only a few times in life outside of a classroom when remembering Pythagorean’s theorem becomes vital. Other than the occasional need for geometry and algebra, my life has been rather void of mathematical equations; that is until last week.

Last week, I received a fax (yes, some people still send a fax) of my accident report. My lovely little blue Element had been sandwiched between a Chevy Tahoe and a Ford Escape. Unfortunately, that is not what the accident report stated. The report stated that my lovely little blue Element crashed into the stationary Chevy Tahoe and moved it forward into the back bumper of a Ford truck. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.

From Irish Clover

My lovely little Element was supposedly able to push a stationary Chevy Tahoe forward into another vehicle. At this point, the logical part of my brain began to compare the size of my lovely little Element to that of a Chevy Tahoe. Just on the superficial level, the Tahoe appeared longer than my car. The Tahoe seats over seven grown adults in it and I can only seat four. Hmmm, my airbag didn’t deploy, so I know I was at a near stop when struck from behind. Then I began to wonder if it was possible for my lovely little Element to actual do what the report said it did.

Dusting off my calculator and finding the physics formulas to calculate the force needed to move an object one meter in half a second, I did some math and discovered that yes, it is possible for my lovely 1599.8 kg Element to move a stationary 3084.4 kg Chevy Tahoe. In order for my car to produce the necessary 42,595.6 Newtons, it needed to be traveling at a speed of 29.75 mph, way faster than I was going and fast enough to force my airbag to deploy (did I mention that it didn’t?). I passed along the information to the wonderful lady with my insurance. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a bit obsessive now. Then I did some math on my sock.

From WIPs

I wasn’t thrilled with how a standard gusset and heel impacted the color flow of the yarn, so I ripped it back, put in some waste yarn for an afterthought heel. I need to then calculate how long to make my foot. I guesstimated, which turned out to much easier than calculating force required to move mass, moved the toe stitches to some waste yarn and then added the heel. The universe is slowly getting back into alignment, much like the alignment on the Element.