• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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      7520 days ago

      Absolutely, but the scale of the balloons is a bit off. Nobody would be walking shoulder to shoulder like this. For a normal-ish 170lb/77kg individual your personal balloon would have to be a little under 6.5 meters across assuming it were filled with helium.

      Yes, I did the math.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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          3220 days ago

          Sure. You could do a cylinder of three quarters of a meter across which seems like a reasonable footprint for someone to stand in. That’d only have to be, uh, 325.5 meters tall to have the same volume.

            • @ReanuKeeves@lemm.ee
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              20 days ago

              Your asshole “buddy” constantly throwing sharp objects at your balloon causing you to be wet all the time and laughing as you ask your mom if she can mend your massive cylinder for the 13th time this month

      • @Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1320 days ago

        Note that you wouldn’t need 77 kg worth of bouyancy from the balloon. The shoes would provide some lift, more if you made them out of some type of foam.

      • @afronaut@slrpnk.net
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        220 days ago

        What if the balloons were long and vertical like the ones in Dune? That could allow them to walk closer to one another.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
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          520 days ago

          I addressed that in another comment here. The long and short of it (very long, as it happens) is that the volume you’d need is still the same. So your elongated balloon would have to be well beyond what most people would consider to be ridiculously tall. 325.5 meters tall, in fact, given the 0.75 meter diameter I assumed to start with. I figure most people could probably stand in a 0.75m circle provided they didn’t wave their arms around a bunch.

    • @Dasus@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      They’re on a carriage that’s like pontooned at the bottom, being pulled by the horse and driver who each have their own balloons.

      edit oh wait d’you mean the ones in the back right my bad dk about them

      • Back right?

        I see two in the back left and two more in the back middle without balloons. The two in the back right are the carriage passengers.

  • @MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    2120 days ago

    I love that the balloons are far too small. Like they didn’t understand the elements and buoyancy well enough to know the balloons have to be much larger. Not like we have negative mass particles.

    • @Maalus@lemmy.world
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      920 days ago

      And you don’t have an issue with the carriage, with three people on it, where the only balloon is on the horse?

      Whoever made this was an artist and sucked at physics

      • @Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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        320 days ago

        The carriage could be on a barge and is just being pulled by the horse. How is the horse getting traction? And why is that man using a cane on water! The small balloons could just be artistic license for the drawing.

    • @angrystego@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      I’d be ok with splashing. I want this!

      Edit: Perhaps the shoes have keels or fins at the bottom and they use a skating-like motion to move around.

  • @rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    Now I’m wondering why we don’t attach giant balloons to ships to reduce water resistance by cutting down how much of the ship needs to be underwater. Perhaps it’s because you would need more size for the balloon, and maybe the air resistance and water resistance needs to even out due to physical laws that I’m too lazy to think about?

    • @IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      The boat already floats. What is the point of making it lighter? Boats are handy for transporting extreme weights because water weighs more than air.

      If it should fly then get a Zepplin

    • @AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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      619 days ago

      Any amount of water contact introduces a fair amount of drag. There may be an ideal point somewhere in the middle, but I think if you take this to it’s natural conclusion you get a zeppelin.

      I did a little bit of math and I think that to lift the payload capacity (including fuel and crew) of a modern day Panama canal ship you would need about a tenth of the peak U.S. helium reserve (a cube about half a kilometer long on each edge, about 1.3x longer than the long dimension of the ship)

      I don’t think you’d get the best fuel efficiency going upwind lol

      Anything smaller would come with proportionally less downsides and at least proportionally less benefits. I doubt it could ever be a net positive in any useful metric.

      • @humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        219 days ago

        Hydrogen for sure. Partial lift for a boat has a lot of applications. Much more cargo than an airship, with no complications in flying empty. A fairly flat triangular “balloon” can be used as a solar platform, a sail, and be put in neutral wind mode down to the deck.