Brain Candy

How much does a cubic mile (1x1x1) of air at sea level weigh? Go big. Very, very big.

Your brain is like the rest of your body. Use it or lose it.

A cubic mile of air (1x1x1) weighs ~5 million tons!

Here are the calculations:

The weight of a cubic mile of air at sea level is 5,280 x 12 squared times the air pressure at sea level minus the air pressure at 5,280 feet.

This is (5,280 x 12) 2 x (14.7 – 12.26) = 9,795,354,624 pounds or 4.898 million tons.


Minimum weight

Earth’s atmosphere has been measured to extend to 621 miles up. The square root of 621 is 24.920.

The inverse of 24.920 is .04013. So to total 1 cubic mile of air up to the maximum height, the column will have to be .0413 x 5,280 feet on a side = 211.88 feet

211.88 feet x 12 inches per foot x 211.88 feet x 12 inches per foot = 6,464,556.5 square inches

Times 14.7 PSI = 95,028,980 pounds or only 47,514 tons, less than one percent of the volume of 1 x 1 x 1.

This is the minimum weight of a cubic mile of air at sea level assuming STP (standard temperature and pressure).


The maximum weight would be a one inch thickness instead of one mile or 621 miles thick.

5,280 feet cubed = 147,197,952 cubic feet x 12 inches cubed = 254,358,061,056,000 cubic inches in one cubic mile.

254,358,061,056,000 x 14.7 psi = 3,739,063,497,523,200 pounds or 1,869,531,748,761.6 tons which equals 934,765,874.38 million tons, 190,846,442 times as much as one mile square of air one mile in height.

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I’m so confused :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Craig Anthony. I will explain it .It means that grapevine is my biggest fan. :crazy_face:

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I think the original post was mistakenly posted to the wrong message board. Other than that, I have no clue why someone would post that on a poker site.

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We need SPG here to analyze it for us

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zona79 grapevine will analyze it.

then delete it hahahaha

I do not pretend to understand the content of this topic, but it has been posted in an off topic category and does not contravene any forum rules, therefore I hope it will prove to be a matter of discussion between people who do wish to comment.

:joy: :rocket: :ninja: :grin: :rocket: grapevine you left your sunglasses at the party last night ill run um by your crib later today but u have to give me 4 dollars for gas money

grapevine make it 4 dollars and 57 cents gas went up again and

Wow, impressive. But I think your math is wrong. :crazy_face:

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So very interesting . I just hope this not a load of Hot Air !

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I think so too.

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I think this answers the age old question of, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

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5280 X 5280 X 5280 = Cubic feet in a cubic mile == 147,197,952,000

One pound of air = 12.3609 Cubic feet of air, at sea level.

Then divide 147,197,952,000 by 12.3609 = 11,908,352,300 = lbs. of air

per cu. mile, at sea level.

Standard atmospheric pressure is 14.7 lbs per sq./inch at sea level.

Square inches in a square mile , 5280 X 5280 X 144 = 4,014,489,600 sq.in./sq.mile

Air press per sq. mile = 4,014,489,600 X 14.7 = 59,012,997,120 lbs. press per sq/mile.

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download (10)

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If we had literally a 1 x 1 x 1 mile cube of air, only the air at the bottom would be at sea level, the air at the top would be a mile higher.

The air in this cube would never all be at the same pressure, because the pressure is determined by the weight of the column of air above. I would expect a smooth gradient of pressures, from high at the bottom to low at the top. The average pressure would be quite a bit less than that of air at sea level.

If you’re just going to take the weight of one cubic foot of air and multiply that by the number of cubic feet in a cubic mile, it can’t get much easier. It won’t give you the right answer, but it’s easy. :slight_smile:

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So it’s not “ Brain Candy “ after all, it’s “ Brain I lied “ :joy:

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Well, it’s candy if you like this sort of stuff.

I didn’t mention differential cooling, temperature inversions, or convection currents, all of which (and more) would make some difference.

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I’m sticking to POKER :+1:t2:

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