Monday Morning Mathifications

So I was listenin' ta some musics the other day, when me phone kicked up "Gimme Back Me Bullets" by Leonard P. Skinnard, which I always done liked, so I cranked it up. An' when it done got ta verse number the two, the words was:

Sweet talkin' people done ran me out of town
And I drank enough whiskey to float a battleship around 

Great googly moogly. That's a lotta whiskey.

And it got me ta thinkin'. Just how much whiskey would ya need fer ta do that? So then I mathified.

First of all, ya gots ta know exactlies which battleship yer gonna be floatin'. Some was a lot bigger than others. I finally figgered I'd go with the USS New Jersey, since at the time the song were written she was the last battleship fer ta have served on duties. So I done looks her up, an' it sez she displaced 45,000 tons. Now the song don' say "float", it sez "float aroun'", so I figgers we's gonna need at least five times that much. That's a lotta whiskey.

Now, next thing be, what be the density of whiskey? I know it ain't the same as water, so I gots fer ta look that up too. Turns out is 7.54 pounds per gallon. Okay then.

One last thing I needed. Well I didn't need it exactlies, but is gonna give it some perspectives, is how much whiskey does people drink?  Took a bit of diggin' fer ta find that one - apparentlies is not a question what gets asked a lot in polite company on the interwebbies. But eventuallies I found this, what sez in North America we drinks about 200 million liters of whiskey a year. Holy guacamole.

Dangit, I got one numbers in gallons an' on in liters. How does them match up? 3.79 liters per gallon? Thankee.

Okay so now let's done put it all togethers an' see where we is.

45,000 tons * 5 * 2000 pounds per ton * 1 gal / 7.54 pounds * 3.79 liters per gallon * 1 years worth / 200 million liters

which done equals ...

ummmm ....

well ....

Bugger it. I's just a simple orc, I ain't gonna be ables ta figger this. Creighton! Slap one of them mage-y brains buffson yerself  an' tell me what this done equals.

Okay! There we go. Is equals 1.13 years worth of North American whiskey drinkin' fer ta float a battleship around. All done by one 1970s rock star. Party on, bro.

Or ya could just do it the traditional way, an' float the bugger in water.