How Much Would It Cost To Build The Death Star?

February 15, 2012 in Editorial, Top

Building a massive space weapon is all very well, but you have to find the materials to build it with. It’s easy to say that “sure, the Death Star would be expensive” but is there actually enough iron in the Earth to make the first Death Star? Centives decided to find out.

We began by looking at how big the Death Star is. The first one is reported to be 140km in diameter and it sure looks like it’s made of steel. But how much steel? We decided to model the Death Star as having a similar density in steel as a modern warship. After all, they’re both essentially floating weapons platforms so that seems reasonable.

Name: HMS Illustrious

Volume: 28,591.2 m3

Mass: 22,000 tonnes

Scaling up to the Death Star, this is about 1.08×1015 tonnes of steel. 1 with fifteen zeros.

Which seems like a colossal mass but we’ve calculated that from the iron in the earth, you could make just over 2 million* Death Stars. You see the Earth’s crust may have a limited amount of iron, but the core is mostly our favourite metal and is both very big and very dense, and it’s from here that most of our death-star iron would come.

Name: Death Star

Volume: 1,440,000 kilometres3

Mass: 1.08 x 1015 tonnes

But, before you go off to start building your apocalyptic weapon, do bear in mind two things. Firstly, the two million death stars is mostly from the Earth’s core which we would all really rather you didn’t remove. And secondly, at today’s rate of steel production (1.3 billion tonnes annually), it would take 833,315 years to produce enough steel to begin work. So once someone notices what you’re up to, you have to fend them off for 800 millennia before you have a chance to fight back. In context, it takes under an hour to get the steel for HMS Illustrious.

Oh, and the cost of the steel alone? At 2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world’s GDP.**

But then again, you can just take out a loan from the entire planet and then default on them in the most awesome way possible.

(For the record when converting between iron and steel, Centives assumed a medium steel of 99.5% iron)

*Centives erronously reported this figure as 2 billion, not 2 million. Our thanks to commenter Shaun for pointing out this error

**Centives erroneously reported this figure as $8,100,000,000,000,000, which was off by a magnitude of 100. We’d like to thank commenter Ianvl for pointing this out. Despite our original error, the cost of the death star still comes out to be 13,000 times the world’s GDP as we originally reported. Sincere apologies for the mistake.

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Pizza Topping Markup Calculator

January 25, 2012 in Editorial, Top

Centives decided to take a look at the mark-up on the toppings for a pizza. Read the rest of this entry →

Predicting the Weather

January 11, 2012 in Editorial, Top

During these crazy months of winter, weather websites will be visited so that people can plan their days accordingly. With so many websites to choose from, it is hard to decide which to look at on any given day. But do all of these sites agree on a specific weather prediction? Do some predict worse weather than others?

Centives looked at different and well-known weather websites to see if they tended to agree or disagree on the weather for the month of November. Three were considered (AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, and Weather Underground), but Weather Underground only gave a range of possible temperatures, so we did not use this site in our first analysis. Both of the other sites were programed to give the weather in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 9 out of the 30 days in November, AccuWeather and The Weather Channel predicted Read the rest of this entry →

How Much Did Edward and Bella’s Wedding Cost?

November 16, 2011 in Editorial, Top

As almost all Twilight fans know, “Breaking Dawn Part 1” will be released on Friday. The big moment of the movie will be the wedding; finally Edward and Bella will be together forever. From the scenes that have been leaked through trailers, the wedding looks extravagant complete with streaming flowers and a designer dress. Centives decided to take a look at what the cost of a wedding like that would be. We began by searching through the book for clues about the wedding, and then looked at the trailers from the film to Read the rest of this entry →

Buying the Real Steel Robots in 2011

November 2, 2011 in Editorial, Top

2011 film Real Steel takes place in a not so distant future where human boxers have faded away to be replaced by robotic brawlers. The most striking thing about the film is the technological sophistication of the mechanical fighters in a movie that is set just ten years into the future. Centives decided to find out how much the androids would cost in today’s dollars, and then figured out the equivalent car that you could buy for the same amount of money in the present.

Current expectations for the Read the rest of this entry →

What’s the Population of Panem?

October 26, 2011 in Editorial, Top

Anyone who has read The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins has likely wondered how many people reside in the fictional Nation of Panem. Panem is the county that “rose out of the ashes” of North America after it was destroyed by wars, famines, and natural disasters. Instead of 50 states, Panem has 12 districts which surround the Capitol. About 75 years before the start of the novel, we learn that the districts rebelled against the Capitol, which is painted as an oppressive dictatorship to those who live in the districts. The era was known as the “Dark Days”, the Capitols triumph over the districts is what leads to The Hunger Games and the story of Katniss Everdeen.

There is much uncertainty about the state of Panem. Even after finishing the books, many readers are anxious to learn more about the country that has replaced the one that many of us live in today. Perhaps the biggest unknown about Panem is its population. Fortunately, this question is not impossible to answer. Using the clues that Collins hides in her books, w Read the rest of this entry →

The Economics of Friends

September 28, 2011 in Editorial, Top

Friends is widely regarded to be one of the best television shows in history. With constant reruns in the United States and the rest of the world it’s clear that the show still has a significant cultural impact. The series which aired from 1994 to 2004 features the lives of six friends living in Manhattan. The show follows them through the tumultuous twenties and early thirties of dating, marriage, divorce, kids, and career changes.

How would the six fare living in Manhattan in today’s day and age? Centives decided to find out. To estimate the income of Read the rest of this entry →

The Centives Line Up (As Inspired by Moneyball)

September 21, 2011 in Editorial, Top

“There are rich teams and there are poor teams and then there’s fifty feet of crap, and then there’s us.” This quote begins the trailer to this month’s Moneyball, which is the story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics, who had the second lowest payroll in the American League (40 million), yet won the most games (102). Billy Beane, Oakland’s General Manager, used statistical market inefficiencies to build a winning team full of undervalued stars. Almost a decade has passed since that team defied expectations, and with big market ballclubs spending more and more each season since, a low payroll team doesn’t seem to have much of a shot anymore.

So Centives decided to create a fantasy 25-man roster of undervalued players from this season in the spirit of Moneyball, to show that there is still hope Read the rest of this entry →

Rachel Berry’s Life After Glee

September 15, 2011 in Editorial, Top

Centives is sad to report that many of Glee’s main characters will be leaving the show at the end of the season that premieres this Tuesday. Fox has announced that in order to remain realistic, many of the members of the show will be graduating. The third season will focus on who is allowed to graduate and what their future goals may be. In order to help fans out a little bit and stay ahead of the game, Centives decided to calculate the potential for Rachel Berry as she attempts to make it big on Broadway.

In the season 2 finale, Rachel went through an escapade over her dreams of New York living. If she goes through with these plans, and ends up at the epitome of New York City music colleges, she will find herself at The Juilliard School. The cost of going to Julliard for four years at the current tuition rate would be Read the rest of this entry →

Monopoly Property Value Calculator

September 7, 2011 in Editorial, Top

In competitive sessions of the board game Monopoly it is always difficult to decide how much you should sell your properties for. There is little doubt that the bank prices for the deeds to the different lands vastly undervalue the true worth of the property. But what is the true value of the place? How much should you be willing to buy or sell it for? Centives decided to find out. Read the rest of this entry →