How can shooting a cork in the air have a Tectonic effect or indeed affect the Richter scale? Surely they are from below the earth? Anyway- get a life!

While this seems to be a plausible question it's along the same lines of the question of what would happen if everyone in the world jumped at the same time? The only sound effects would be that of those in auditory distance and there would be no platonic (which I think you meant by tectonic). The shock from popping a champagne bottle is absorbed by the arms and upper body. So, by the time the energy reaches the ground it is minimal or non-existent. Even if all the energy did go into the ground, the difference in structures of buildings and the Earth would prevent any noticeable effect. For example, if people on a 4th floor apartment all popped Champagne while doing the experiment, the energy probably would not effect the earth at all. Furthermore, while it would be great to see women gleefully floating in champagne foam, there simply is not enough foam created. In addition, I think a more entertaining experiment for a math or science/physics class would be the effects of a single champagne bottle (energy, velocity, sound, etc.).

This question would also mean that over 6.6 billion bottles of champagne would have to be produced and that every one of those persons be able to pop the champagne cork, which is highly unlikely.

I thought I would add that nowhere near that full amount or a majority of the champagne comes out when you shake the bottle and pop the cork. To create rivers or large bodies of champagne "waters" each person would have the dump out the whole bottle of champagne.

For a rough calculation, here are my assumptions:
- A champagne cork leaves the bottle at around 400 m/s^2
- Approximate mass of 30g for the cork
- World population of 7 billion
- 75cl bottle champagne

So the force of one cork = 12N

7 billion * 12N = 84GN

to put into perspective 1 Space shuttle launch = 40MN

So this would be the equivalent of 2100 space shuttles being fired in the opposite direction to the Earth's spin.

Now read this article...

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg...

:D

I dont think the effect of the corks popping would be great enough to have any signifacnt seismic effect...

As for the 5.25 billion litres of champagne.... the Amazon drains 300,000 m^3 of water into the Atlantic at the height of rainy season, which is equivalent to 0.3bn litres... in other words, about 15 seconds for the Amazon to drain all that champagne...

These are 'back of a cigarette packet' calculations, but I think it goes some way to showing that we would all have to get a lot more wasted to slow the Earth down... Despite this, I am willing to try!

How to destroy the earth with champagne.
Imagine the earth’s surface as a large pool of water, equal to size and scale. Now imagine that a bottle of champagne equals grain of sand in size and scale. By taking the worlds population roughly 7 billion we now have 7 billion grains of sand (champagne bottles).

If we were to suspend these gains of sand above this scale pool, spread proportionally to the current population of the earth. Then drop them at the same time, the disturbance of the surface tension of the water would be hardly noticeable if at all. The arias of greatest population would see, feel and hear the majority of the disturbance.

To maximize the disturbance in our scale pool we must bring all 7 billion grains of sand together into one ball of sand. We now suspend the 7 billion-grain ball of sand above the pool and drop it. The energy delivered is much greater and the effect is more noticeable and lasts longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prT-JKBt-...

If any real damage is to be done you must open one bottle then wait for the shock wave to reach the other side of the earth and return (assuming you could track one bottle’s energy shock wave through the earth). At the moment it returns you must open another bottle. The combined shock waves now traveling through the earth and back where you repeat the process until you find the resonant frequency of the earth. In theory you could split the earth much like sound waves can break a glass. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17tqXgvCN...

If this doesn’t work at least you could still throw one hell of a party. If it dose work it would be known as the largest case of alcohol abuse in the universe. So make peace, not war, and drink your booze, don’t waste it. You will have more fun getting tanked.

If every person popped a bottle at the same time the sound of the popping would be almost nil, being that there is appox. 7 billion people and the aveage sound of of cork popping is about 30 feet. The average space between people would be somewhere about 20 acres. So the only popping you would hear would be the cork you popped. There would be no platonic, tectonic or siezmic effects. Also there would be no repeatative resounding over 17 h 30 mins, since it all happened in a single moment. As for how much champaign flow to swim in, well unless you like wallowing on wet ground there wouldn't be any being that the average bottle of Champ is 750 ml roughly a quart would be quickly absorbed into the ground. There may be alot of drunk fish once it all hit the water supply at one time. But being that champaign is about 12% alcohol it would quickly dilute with the water, being that the earth is covered in 3/4 of it. There would only be around 9.34 million gallons of bubbly mixed with countless trillions or quadrillions of water, making it about .00000934 parts per million. You might raise sea level a few inches at best.

Calculation Factors would be:
7 Billion people
Lateral surface area of the earth, S=4(pi r square) / 25
Earth is approximaetly 14,000 miles in diameter. P=S/7 billion
P=Area per person

Volume of the water on earth V=4(pi r square) / 3 , V/25x3

7 billion bottles of 750 ml = 9.3 milion gallons
Volume of bubbly added into volume of ocean water.


(calculations are guestimated off the top of my head.)

The bottle of champagne: A volcano erupts explosively for the same reason that a too-hastily-opened bottle of champagne spews out much of its contents. As magma nears the surface, built-up pressure is suddenly released, causing dissolved gases to come out of solution and expand explosively. In champagne, something similar happens when the cork is popped.

After beginning with an overview of Earth's place in the universe, you move directly to the most important unifying concept ever developed in the science of geology: plate tectonics. An understanding of this beautiful idea places other topics such as mountain building and seismology in crystal-clear perspective.

With this "big picture" introduction complete, you shift to the microworld of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles to gain a basic understanding of minerals, which are the building blocks of rocks and soils. From there you move to the three types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.

Granitic magma very rarely rises to the surface, but when it does, it produces an eruption of unimaginable violence—and also why the marker for such an event having occurred in the past is a fine grained rock called rhyolite.

Equipped with knowledge of both the large and small scales, you then venture into the field to explore: volcanism, mass wasting, weathering and soils, the sculpting of the land, groundwater, rock deformation and geologic structures, earthquakes, mountains, and the economic geology of coal and petroleum.

Due to differing magma chemistry, volcanoes along the margin of colliding plates are much more dangerous than those where plates are pulling apart. The former include Mount Saint Helens in the United States and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, among many others. The latter include the numerous active volcanoes on Iceland, which rarely harm anyone.

Now I have only had champagne on 2 occasions one being my wedding and the other being this V-day....

I do believe that if every person , that was able, were to pop a bottle at the exact same time rate down to the micro second .... well the shock could be tremendous. Sound waves have been know to have the capacity and the force to bring down buildings and well a champagne bottle popping is a strong sound even it is not long in length.

The after effects could be so grand that monuments like the Golden gate bridge in the US would fall due to the "sound pressure". Not at that this could possible cause the ground to shake under you feet because the sound of the popping moves through the bottle and then through your body in to the ground.

So if everyone in the world were to pop a bottle that in it self might be enough to cause a world wide tremor, of great significances. Not to mention the fact that possibly nearly every person living in a major city would be belted or hit in some shape or form by a bottle cork causing massive injuries and potential death.

It is a nice idea in theory but highly dangerous. The only way to safely try it is to pop one bottle and then estimate from there taking in to consideration how people there are on the planet and assuming that everyone performed the experiment the exactly the same way, with perfect results.

Very nice I would love to try and find out my self maybe i will the next time I pop a bottle! Nice question!

nice

This would do nothing. But if everyone were to drink the whole bottle after opening it, the world would need to take a day off to recover from a hang over, thus creating yet another new holiday "Hang Over Day"

I wonder what kind of weather we would get after someting like this? With all that CO2 being released from all those bottles!

If I'm being washed out to sea, can I take Ginger instead? Oh, and a few cases of rum too!

How can shooting a cork in the air have a Tectonic effect or indeed affect the Richter scale? Surely they are from below the earth? Anyway- get a life!