You mean, they took a break from whaling to do some actual research?

fooooood

Would have no effect whatsoever if the pressure inside the mini was equal.

You can blow up a party balloon to the size of a football at sea level, you can also do the same at 35,000 feet. The problem comes when you move between the two.

follow this... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7655358.stm

Is this a new addition to the El Reg measurement standard?

"In case you're wondering what kind of pressure they're under, it's equivalent to "1,600 elephants on the roof of a Mini"."

or the average couch potato on a remote control.

Not everyone in Japan is a whaler...

The Hadeep project, which began in 2007, is a collaboration between the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab and the University of Tokyo's Ocean Research Institute (Ori) and aims to expand our knowledge of biology in the deepest depths of the ocean.

It is funded by the Nippon Foundation and the Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc).

How many "'1600 elephants on the roof or a mini" should I pump by bike tyres up to ?

More seriously, why is everything measured in elephants and football fields these days ? Whatever happened to good old SI units ?

African or Indian?

So if the roof of a mini is the size of a football pitch how many elephants do we need now?

And I might find that number hard to imagine so to make it easier, how many elephants would it then take to fill Wembley Stadium as I understand that measurement... :)

Well, sea water at about 1 kg/l means that the pressure rises about 100 gf/cm2 for each metre of depth, so 10 m is about 1 kgf/cm2 which is about 1 bar.

Therefore 1600 elephants/mini roof = 770 bar.

Those aren't fish -- they're bleached tadpoles!

At this depth the pressure is such that compressed air is denser than water. Now, work out why our deep oceans are not floating on top of a layer of highly compressed air.

what sort of Mini?

Mk I ? II? Cooper? Cooper S? An Austin? A Morris? a BMW Mini? Or even (gasp! ) a John Cooper Works GP something?

OK, I'll take a stab at it: because the air would be absorbed by the water and carried away?

Imagine if you will what those fish would think of our incredibly low level pressure existance, would blow their tiny little minds....

@ Nigel - erm, the air is in solution in the water, not present in gaseous form, hence lack of issue... I guess. Any video footage of bubbles sinking anywhere!?!?!

Because the water is also compressed, and therefore has more mass?

I dunno. Is this a trick question?

That's only 1.38 leagues under the sea.

Come back when they find life at 20,000 leagues ;-) *

But seriously though, 4200 fathoms is 7.6km which is pretty deep (considering Everest is just below 9km high). Still some way to go though as the deepest point is 11km.

* - yeah, I know. Verne's book didn't refer to the depth, but the journey travelled. Ah well.

probably because no one has bothered to stick a dirty great big pipe down to the bottom of each ocean and fill the sea bed with compressed air.

Would make the Handron experiments look like pants though, granted.

BTW I've got a John Cooper Works GP special and it's had at leat 2000 elephants on its roof in the last fortnight.

I... I don't know!

Would they be unladen elephants?

they are, but it's only about 0.5 mm thick (give or take), so until this point only i knew about it.

Fresh water is 1 kg/l. Sea water depending on where you are is around 1.04 kg/l.

Surely the pressure quoted should have been in jubs/nanowales anyway.

...Why are there 1600 Elephants and a Mini on the bottom of the ocean?

My Guess -

The Mini = A James Bond stunt gone totally awry

The Elephants = We took all their land up here, so they migrated, and grew gills?

Further more, I doubt 1600 Elephants humping a mini is appropriate journalistic comparison.

Coat, hat, and pirates. Because Well, mateys

"... would have no effect whatsoever if the pressure inside the mini was equal."

Wow man you're blowing my mind. So if there are 1600 elephants inside the mini too, then it's like an elephant free zone man. Far out.

Seriously, please stop with the pounds, inches, gallons, cwts, bus wheels, elephants, football pitches and just use proper SI units.

I remember reading a story in one of the tabloids years ago where the original information was peppered with weights in kg. The journo, mindful that a kg would be a strange and fearful unit for his readers, but unsure how to convert it to the traditional British lb, had changed every kg to 'bag of sugar'. Strange but true.

Geez, wow, amazing - fish that swim!!!! Give that guy another grant so he can carry on the good work. Who would have thought that thing shaped like fish, smell like fish and taste like fish would SWIM like fish! Amazing.

...to the work mathematics has done for us that elephant-mini experimentation could be abandoned and theoretical ele-math could take its place.

Oh and 1600 elephants on a mini as a statement of pressure = 1.6 kilophants per square clubman

That's no so much. Mini's are quite strong you know. I once tried to get my starter motor off after it'd been caked in shit from the road for 20 years, and would that thing budge? 1,600 elephants or not, some things on a mini are the immovable object. Don't know about the roof though... The fish'd be alright if they were inside listening to the radio I would think though, no? There'd probably be room for them to squidge in the nooks and crannies as the roof caved in. They might die from being out of the water though... Not sure this was all that well thought through.

Got coat, wore coat, flew.

"So if the roof of a mini is the size of a football pitch how many elephants do we need now?"

1 Tuskerena.

Make a 6km tube with internal dimensions to match the roof of a mini. Stand the tube vertically in a deep part of the ocean. Put a mini-roof in the end of the tube, seal the edges and pile on a large supply of elephants until the roof is pushed down to the far end of the tube.

Provide photographic evidence or admit that that this 1600 elephants theory is wild speculation.

>Who would have thought that thing shaped like fish, smell like fish and taste like fish would SWIM like fish!

Sorry mate but I was highly impressed by the video. Yeah they are pretty unimpressive compared to a lot of other creatures (yeah I thought bleached tadpoles as well) but when you consider the depth/temperature they are working at then its a beautiful piece of film.

Lets hope this project brings more of these scenes back, maybe all those sad Virgin space tourists could be convinced to pay for a trip with a real purpose.

Please can we stick to standard units - what is this is Wales please ?

Though whales might be more appropriate.

Well in that case, I for one welcome our new Frog like underlords...

that is all...

Sod the fish, I want to see the video of the 1,600 elephants driving the car with the other 1,600 elephant display team performing on its top!

I think you may have made some mistake with your figure of 1.6 megaelephants per mini roof. You seem to have made the mistake of assuming that the elephant's weight is distributed evenly over the entire roof surface rather than being transmitted over a few square feet (well, round feet, actually, but I digress). Also, an elephant at 24,000 fathoms would have positive buoyancy, don't ya know...

They were expecting sedentary solitary fish and found active communal fish.

Is this a) because said fish are actually active and communal or b) because said fish happened to rapidly congregate around the new, unexpected free food source that was chucked in to attract them.

Discuss.

I am still waiting with baited breath for them to "prove" the structural integrity of the curved roof of the new office development next to where I work. In their early construction flyer they said the roof was strong enough to take the weight of several hundred elephants, a feat which we want to see happen (not that there is much chance of several hundred paciderms congregating in the middle of Birmingham). There are several logistical quandries - how will the elephants get up there in the first place? Is that weight equivalent a static pressure, or will the elephants be allowed to move? Anyway we are still waiting for the long line of Billy Smarts circus lorries to pull up and to hear the thundering roar of elephant trumpeting.....just nobody release a mouse !!

OK: Elephants/mini roof is now the layman's "understandable" unit of pressure: I therefore propose the depth is measured in acres/light-year.

but the african is non-migratory, and therefore is unlikely to be found at -24000 ft.

Would the elephants be strung together on a strand of creeper held under the guiding dorsal feathers?

Because there would have to be a vessel employed to get the air compressed and under the water in the first place, the air would also have to cover the area globe and the sea be at a constant pressure IE, level sea beds and water depth.

... in a story about scum-sucking bottom feeders who never see the light of day and who have to work under immense pressure while crap drops from above?

By Matt Bradley Posted Tuesday 7th October 2008 17:19 GMT (@Nigel):

<quote>

Because the water is also compressed, and therefore has more mass?

I dunno. Is this a trick question?

<unquote>

Water is not compressible, not even if 1600 elephants stand on it!

yeah, but if this was wales, we would have to be measuring in sheep on a shingle

Yes, you guys got it. The air would dissolve in the water quite fast. Smart people around here.

I've always wanted to see a video of bubbles sinking, but it would be expensive and somewhat dangerous to obtain the footage. You'd have to get a cylinder of even more compressed air down there, and release it. On second thoughts it would probably look exactly the same as ordinary bubbles at lesser depth rising, but with your screen upside-down.

A video of bubbles sinking may not be available, but Micheal Jackson might have a video of Bubbles going down.

OK, I'll get my coat.

If I may cite some old articles about news on El Reg...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/19/reg_club_rules/

Furthermore:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/

Enjoy.