I came here for a weighty discussion and I was not disappointed!
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The Sigma-Aldrich listing is for powdered Osmium, so that won’t achieve the maximum possible density. Maybe go for 1cm Osmium cubes instead? They’d pack nicely and it would only cost 1.35 million dollars to fill the box.
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But then you no longer have the elephant in the room, so what won’t you talk about?
“Would you like to insure that? We can cover up to $5000 worth for about $75, but no more.”
So what’s the heaviest thing you can fit with a value under $5000?
So you’re saying it’s Miami vice versa?
“The machine couldn’t be stopped and certainly shouldn’t be destroyed, the wizard said. Destroying the machine might well cause this universe to stop existing, instantly. On the other hand, the Post Office was filling up, so one day Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow had gone into the room with a crowbar, had ordered all the wizards out, and belted the machine until things stopped whirring. The letters ceased, at least. This came as a huge relief, but nevertheless, the Post Office had its Regulations, and so the chief postal inspector was brought before Postmaster Cowerby and asked why he had decided to risk destroying the whole universe in one go. According to Post Office legend, Mr. Rumbelow had replied: “Firstly, sir, I reasoned that if I destroyed the universe all in one go, no one would know; secondly, when I walloped the thing the first time, the wizards ran away, so I surmised that unless they has another universe to run to they weren’t really certain; and lastly, sir, the bloody thing was getting on my nerves. Never could stand machinery, sir.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
Also from the same text, which I highly recommend to fans of this thread:
“You can’t destroy the mails. You just can’t do it, sir. That’s Tampering With The Mail, sir. That’s not just a crime, sir. That’s a, a—” “Sin?” said ■■■■■. “Oh, worse’n a sin,” said Groat, almost sneering. “For sins you’re only in trouble with a god, but in my day, if you interfered with the mail, you’d be up against Chief Postal Inspector Rumbelow. Hah! And there’s a big difference. Gods forgive.”
Oblig XKCD:
I once mailed a USPS flat-rate letter envelope to near-bursting with paper (secured with extra tape, before that was prohibited), and the person receiving it described the reaction of the postal carrier delivering it: “he was trying to come up with the word ‘hack’ but didn’t have that in his vocabulary.”
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Some suggestions for additional USPS rules:
- package contents may not be colder than 0 Kelvin
- any moving parts within the package may not move faster than the speed of light
- it is not permitted to send perpetual motion machines
- the set of the package’s contents may not include the package itself
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No one wants to talk about who’s going to clean up the bloody (literally) mess.
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The answer to that question is “Yes.”
Now I have to wonder how much 75 cu. inches of scrith weighs, and if it would fit into said box.
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Yeah, that. Elephants are not divisible.
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Someone should get a YouTube scientist with access to the stuff to see if the glue and cardboard would hold up to a full box of osmium.
Actually, would it hold up a full box of lead? If I packed that box with lead, would the glue hold? Would the box rip?
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