U of O Physics Problems
In his short story "A Slight Case of Sunstroke", Arthur C. Clarke
writes of a stadium full of disgruntled soccer fans barbecueing the
dishonest referee by reflecting sunlight on him with mirrors found
under their seats.
- a.
- Imagine a stadium at the equator at noon (i.e. the sun's directly
overhead), with 50,000 fans (about the capacity of Autzen Stadium). Assuming
that sunlight delivers about 1000 watts per square meter to the surface of the
Earth, and that each fan is holding a
mirror at 
, how
much power would be available to be projected onto a dishonest referee?
- b.
- To be humane, lets replace the referee with a 50 kg cylinder
of
water. Assuming this cylinder absorbs all of the reflected
light from the mirror - wielding fans, how long will it take for it to reach
? (The heat capacity of water is about 4200 
)
dm