Blog of A B3tan

(For those of you unfamiliar with the biscuit, here's a wiki article to clear it up.)

Well, how hard could it be to find out? All you need is maths, science and Rich-Tea biscuits. As it happens, I have all three.

Firstly, maths. It'll help to know that an Olympic swimming pool is 25m x 50m, the depth, however, is variable. For the sake of the experiment, we're going to make the pool 2m deep in all areas, giving us a total volume of 2,500 cubic metres, or 2,500,000 litres. Joy!

Now. Here comes the science. I need to find out how much the average Rich-Tea will soak up, then I need to work out how long it takes to dip one into an Olympic swimming pool.


The Plan

I'm going to start by weighing five biscuits at once, dipping them in water, and weighing them again, in their soggy state. A gram of water converts to 1 millilitre, so here I can calculate how much has been soaked up by five biscuits. Then I divide the number by 5 to work out how much water the average Rich-Tea will stow away. Easy.


After that, I'm going to need to work out how long it would take to drain 2,500,000 litres using this method. Then, I'm going to measure how many biscuits I can dip into a pool in ten seconds and calculate from there. I don't think my local pool attendant would approve of me dipping my biscuity goodness into his nice pool, so I'm going to need some sort of alternative.

For timing purposes, I can really be anywhere, as long as I'm making the correct motions. Also, I'm going to be taking it at quite a steady pace, because I'm expecting it to take a long enough time that pacing yourself and conserving energy is going to be a requirement.


Prediction

Even without making any preliminary calculations, I predict that this will take quite close to forever to drain an Olympic sized swimming pool, and will consume more Rich-Tea biscuits than Lisa Riley has had in her lifetime. Probably.


The Experiment

Yes, it's the bit you've all been waiting for, the experiment itself.
Although I originally stated that I'd be using five biscuits, I found myself using ten, because my scales aren't accurate enough to properly read a weight difference so small. There are only marks every 100g, which leaves a certain amount of guess work as to the value.
Also, for the grand old cost of 28 Great British Pence, I got quite a large packet of Morrison's own brand Rich-Tea biscuits. Mmmm...

So, with my equipment at the ready, consisting of:
...water in a miscillaneous jug...

I pour ten of Morrison's own finest Rich-Tea biscuits onto the scales. It looks pretty close to 75g. So far so good.

Now I dip them in the water and weigh all ten again.
During the dipping process, I found that while the biscuits were submerged, they released air bubbles for about three seconds. This I hadn't really expected. I have played with some scenarios, and timed myself dipping into an imaginary pool, and I'm coming close to 4 seconds per biscuit. That's even longer than I expected. Anyway, the water laden biscuits weighed 110g, again, not 100% accurate becuase of the markings.

So what does this mean?
Well, the average Rich-Tea weighs 7.5g when dry and 11g when wet. Which is in impressive on take of 3.5g, almost adding 50% to the weight of the biscuit. So the average Rich-Tea takes three seconds to take on 3.5ml of water, with an additional second to actually physically move it from a pile of dry biscuits, into the pool, and out again. So every 4 seconds, 3.5ml are soaked up, which is o.oo35 litres in four seconds, or 0.0525 litres per minute. Not the most efficient way of draining an Olympic swimming pool, I'll wager.

So 2,500,000 litres, at o.o525 litres per minute, will take 47,619,047.62 minutes, or 793,650.79 hours, or 33,068.78 days, or 90.54 YEARS! Not only that, but it would require 714,285,714.3 Rich-Tea biscuits to dry out the pool. Gasp...

That's a lifetime of dipping Rich-Tea biscuits into an Olympic sized swimming pool! If you're seriously considering this method, I reccomend some sort of slavery, because doing it yourself would be quite boring. Having said that, you could do it with a partner or close friend and you'd only waste 45.27 years of your life, but I'm sure you'd have a bit of a lark doing it. Bonus points for soaking up more by pushing your mate in while he's fully clothed. Unless you were doing it as some sort of training under a Zen master, then he'd probably make you start over because you contaminated the pool with something non-biscuit based.

In traditional B3ta style, I did taste one of the water soaked biscuits, and I can safely say it was fucking foul, both in it's soggy cold texture and its watery taste.


Conclusion

Buy a fucking pump, you tight arse bastard. It's probably significantly cheaper than 714,285,714.3 biscuits and 793,650.79 man-hours anyway.


And a big thank you to the nice people at B3ta for including this in their newsletter. Hurrah!


FAQ

Q. Craig said...

Wouldn't it take longer, because the emptier the pool got the further down it would be to the surface, and therefore it would take longer to get the biscuits to the water? Mind you that may be countered to some extent by the effect of evaporation. I think.

A. Well, yes, it would take longer as the water line dropped, but not significantly so, I don't think. When I estimated that it'd take an extra second's worth of handling for each biscuit, I did take this into account and try to average it out in my head, but it's very difficult to be precise about this without actually carrying out the task for real.


Q. Anonymous said...

Or you could just shove all the rich tea biscuits in the swimming pool in one go (possibly with a forklift or some such gizmo). Then they'd all absorb 3.5ml in parallel, meaning that it would take 4 seconds to do the whole lot.

And then months to remove the cruddy mess from the filter...

A. Yes, I could have put them all in at once, but that leaves several problems. Firstly, I now have a pool full of soggy Rich-Tea biscuits instead of a pool full of water. Secondly, they'd all mulch together into a biscuity mush, which would undoubtedly spawn some sort of Rich-Tea bog monster from within.


Q. Anonymous said...

Have you accounted for the chlorination of the water that the rich-tea biscuits might be soaking up?

A. No. It did cross my mind that it may make a difference, although I wasn't entirely sure. However, it matters not, for it's a little known fact that Olympic swimming pools are not chlorinated, because it gives the Russians an advantage.

Q. Anonymous said...

Are you convinced that Morrison's (the original RIS) are really the qualitiest biscuits to use for this? You tight feck!

A. I am 100% convinced that Morrison's own brand Rich-Tea biscuits are the finest in the land when it comes to drying up swimming pools. In fact, they've won the 'Olympic Swimming Pool Draining Biscuit of the Year' four times running... Their low, low price belies their high, high quality.

Q. Anonymous said...

To cut down on time i think you should consider employing machinery.

Good mathing, btw!

A. Thank you for your kind words, but since there is no standard for a Rich-Tea dunking machine, let alone one that will dunk into a swimming pool, no such thing could be included in the study.

Q. Anonymous said... Don't forget to take into consideration the frequency of evaporation in a chlorinated water source. I am sure this whould help pretty significantly over 90 years!

A. *nods politely*


Q. Anonymous said...

I think an olympic swimming pool would be significally deeper than 2 meters. Usually, it's about 2 meters on the shallow part, and almost 4 meters on the deeper end. So a depth of 3 meters (and thus 135 years) would be more likely

A. By the end of my extensive research, I'd come up with several different measurements for the actual pool depth, including 2m, so I simply chose one that made the maths easiest.

Q. Anonymous said...

Surely you wouldn't be able to fully empty a swimming pool cause you'd end up with a biscuity sludge at the bottom... thats what happens with my tea anyhoo.. As for rate of evaporation thats a whole can of worms, I mean is this pool indoors or out doors, heated? in the UK or sunnier climes, covered or open - after all you might get a bit hacked off if it was raining on your undunked rich teas - that would throw your calculations right out! A rough and ready 0.5cm drop per day would see a poole dry in a little under a year. You could kick back and live on all your undunked Rich-Tea biscuits.

A. By carefully following the three second rule, the biscuits maintained their wholeness, even when soggy. The pool is in a vacuum, in a sealed Rich-Tea laboratory. The dunkers have to wear bio-suits.


Q. LittlePixel™ said...

Hot/warm water (ie Tea) penetrates the biscuit's crumb matrix far more quickly so I would summise that with a team of dunketeers surrounding the pool and a heater element in the pool to get the water up to a nice balmy 40° or so you'd probably get the water out in as little as 18 years....

A. Thank you for you heat-based input. There are, obviously, countless ways of accelerating the process, but I feel one must be prepared with the facts should you ever end up having to take on such a task single handedly, and without the aid of machinery. After all, you just never know when you might be called on to perform such a task.


Q. Davyboyingravyjoy said...

I like the maths, but your usage of the units are not quite correct. You say that you have a soaking rate of o.o525 litres per minute or o.o525lpm. What you have failed to reiterate, is that this is per Rich Tea. So you have a soaking rate of o.o525 litres per minute per rich tea, or o.o525lpmrt. And the total time to drain a pool will be 90.54 Rich Tea Years!

A. I only took maths as far as GCSE, and although I did get an A (smug), there wasn't much coverage of the correct units for Rich-Tea pool soakage. Thank you for your correction.


Q. randombloke said...

I think that given the time it would take, biscuits would have time to soak and the be reused later. Maybe you could check the time it takes for a bicuit to be dry again and ready to reoperate, then you'd know the minimum amount of biscuits you need, by using them again and again.

A. Hmm... I suppose that over the course of 90 and a bit years, it's likely that the biscuits would dry out, but would they ever be the same again? Much like kitchen towel that can't be re-used after it's soaked once, unless of course you use Bounty, which I'm told is the stronger soaker-upper... Bounty...

Q. MrFawlty said...

Has no-one considered the superior Digestive as an alternative, or even perhaps the ultimate dunking biscuit, the Hob-Nob? These kings of dunkers will take in much more liquid than the wimpy, rather tasteless Rich Tea!

Still, a great article and so utterly fascinating. Or is it just sad? Oh well, ...

A. You were right the first time, it's fascinating. In regards to Hob-Nobs and Digestives, I'm not a particularly big fan of either, but if you feel like competing, feel free to stage your own experiment so we can compare notes...


Q. mooner said...

Wouldn't it be easier to make a giant biscuit capable of absorbing all the water in 1 dunk, the 3 second rule wouldn't apply but it should be quicker.

Whose for a giant biscuit?
With a cup of coffee of course!

A. You Sir, are a crazy man with no concept of teh sciences... Giant biscuit indeed...!


Q. GimmeACuppa said...

The mention about temp is a good one I think. Biccies dunk better when the drink is hot. A dunked biccy into milk/cold tea (yech) takes longer to soak up. So the dunking into the pool will take a bit longer being a fair bit colder than a decent, dunkable cuppa tea.
Not sure if efficient to warm the entire pool up to decent cuppa levels as even in biosphere, you're going to increase the speed of the pool leaking out to atmosphere.
I suggest a bucket as an intermediate step, take a small amount of pool. Warm it up ('2 sugars? it's ok, I'm sweet enough ta') and use this to dunk. The psychological benefits of seeing a bucket going down quicker may be of benefit too.

A. This experiment provides a platform from which to project and compare many other experiments of a similar nature. An investigation into the effect of temperature on biscuit soakage seems to be a popular idea.