Re: [SLUG] GMail Invite

From: Chad Perrin (perrin@apotheon.com)
Date: Mon Jun 21 2004 - 23:31:18 EDT


Dylan William Hardison wrote:
> I've a gmail invite (had six, gave away five)...
>
> I'll give it away to the first person that can tell me
> how much heat, in BTUs, one average sized hamster produces in one hour.
>
> I'd also like to see the formulae/program source for this, or however
> the information was attained.
>
> I really doubt anyone will do this for a web-based email thing, but eh,
> I'm bored. ;)
>
>

That's not really an answerable question. Different activity levels and different diets, for instance, affect heat output. On the other hand, I could give you a very wild guess:

Most pet hamsters, as adults, eat between ten and fifteen grams of food a day. At a rough guess, I might say that about thirty percent of that is fat, protein, and digestible carbohydrates, with only about six percent of the total being fat. Since fat carries nine calories per gram, six percent fat content would mean that for a thirteen gram diet (to split the difference between 10 and 15, and round up) a hamster consumes around 7 calories of fat per day. That leaves about twenty-four percent protein and digestible carbohydrates, both of which contain four calories per gram. That comes out to about fourteen and a half calories per day from carbs and protein (let's round down, this time, since we rounded up before, and make it 14 calories). That means that a hamster consumes about 21 calories in a given day. There are four calories to one BTU, and since we're talking about a diet that maintains a fairly steady weight, that means that the hamster is burning calories -- c
onverting chemicals to heat -- at the same rate that it is consuming them. This gives us just over five BTUs per day, or (drum roll please) about one fifth of a BTU per hour on average.

How's that?

Sometimes, I just find it impossible to resist a challenge.

--
Chad Perrin
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