Empire State Building – Class Work
10 most interesting pieces
of information relating to my theme:
1. The
empire state building was named after New York being the “Empire State” FACT
2. It
was once the tallest building in the world. Roof Height – 381 metres, Total
Height – 443.2 metres, 102 stories high. FACT
3. It
was designed in just 2 weeks. FACT
4. It’s
iconic as Art Deco architecture, and also a symbol of New York. OPINION
5. It
regained being the tallest building in New York after 9/11. FACT
6. There’s
a lift shaft that hasn’t been touched since broken, and you can see from top to
bottom. FACT
7. The
interior is extremely lavish, and decorated with the landmarks of New York.
FACT
8. According
to the “American Society of Engineers”, it is one of the seven wonders of the
world. FACT
9. Midtown
Manhattan – intersection between West 34th street and Fifth
Avenue. FACT
10. The building is owned
by 2800 investors, and is currently undergoing a $550 million renovation, with
$120 million being spent on making it more energy efficient. FACT
A2 sheet – Identify how
much of those 10 things each are facts and how many are opinions.
IN TOTAL: 80 facts, 10 opinions
Group 1: 79, 11
Group 2: 70, 20
Group 3: 85,5
Group 4: 80, 10
Group 5: 67, 23
Group 6: 71, 9
“Coca Cola is a soft drink”
– fact or opinion?
Opinions – Useful starting
points
Facts – to prove a point,
support your opinion, inform people.
Our group’s method of
research:
Browsing the Internet
Reading books
Collecting Imagery
Watching videos
Listening to an audiobook
Total Class:
Watching videos - screen
shots, observational notes, written quotes
Talking to people – clips,
emails, interviews.
Collecting images– print
outs, scanned, blogged, drawings - primary & secondary sources.
Searching the Internet /
reading books – Interviews, articles from a magazine, photocopies, interviews
(audio and written), practical experiments.
Emailed the subject -
written
Forms of source material we
ended up with:
Facts
Figures
Images Data Quotes
Lists
Figures
Videos
These all give EVIDENCE.
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Further Research - Quantitive Secondary Data
I wanted to look at the sheer measurements of the Empire State Building, as from what I had gathered, it was known for it's size, and being a huge engineering advancement of its time.
Total Height: 443.1792 m
Floor Space: 254,000 m²
Total Volume: 11,277600 m³
Weight: 326,586.506 Tonnes (326586506 Kg)
Height Without Lightening Rod (normal given
height): 1,250 feet (381 metres)
The building took 405 days to build, and was
ahead of schedule.
The total cost of the build was $40,948,900
There are 102 floors, and 1860 steps from ground
to top floor.
There are 6,500 windows.
The build took 7, 000, 000 man hours, and at peak
times, there were 3,400 thousand people working on it at a time.
The lightning rod on the top of the Empire State
Building is struck by lighting an average of 23 times each year.
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Possible Visual Influences - Secondary Research
Posters:
Photography:
Old:
New:
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Pointless Facts
When choosing an area to focus on with my research, I found there were lots of facts and visual data that showed the Empire State Building as an amazing and huge piece of architecture. I like the idea of explaining this in comparison to another object, to emphasise its size. Example:
"The Empire State Building is X amount of Double Decker Busses in height"
This is when I chose to explore pointless facts. I have always enjoyed finding out pointless facts about almost anything, and I would like the idea of producing some myself, in relation the Empire State Building.
Existing Pointless Facts - Primary Research
I asked my classmates if they knew any pointless facts, as I seem to find everyone knows one or two:
“The full name of
Barbie is Barbara Millicent Roberts.”
“When you are
baking, if you put salt in when cooking activates the proteins in the baking
powder, helping it rise a lot more.”
“Elephants can
stand on their heads!”
“You can excrete up
to your whole bodyweight in just half a year.”
“The blue bits in
blue cheese aren't mould, they're a result of copper oxidising.”
“Ducks have
regional accents.”
“If you get
poisoned by silver, it turns your skin irreversibly blue.”
“A man in Sweden
received disability benefits for his addiction to heavy metal music.”
“A group of ferrets
is called a business.”
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Existing Pointless Facts - Secondary Research:
In 10 minutes,
a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons
combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already
married.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because
when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all
the books that would occupy the building.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
Table tennis balls have been known to travel off the paddle at speeds up to
160 km/hr.
Pepsi
originally contained pepsin, thus the name.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never
stop growing.
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including
their eyebrows and eyelashes.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one
row of the keyboard.
"Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand
seven feet, two inches tall.
The original story from "Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights" begins,
"Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
A cow has to
eat grass to produce milk and grass is living.
The most common
name in the world is Mohammed.
The cigarette
lighter was invented before the match.
Americans on
average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
The
"pound" key on your keyboard (#) is called an octotroph.
The only domestic
animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
The
"dot" over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
The first
telephones did not have bells and were connected all the time. In order to
attract the attention of someone on the other side of the line, one would have
to yell, “Ahoy!” into the receiver.
After publishing
his famous dictionary, Noah Webster rewrote the bible, replacing all the words
he considered were “naughty”.
A nepheligenous
is someone filling a room with tobacco smoke.
Van Gogh sold
only one painting during his life.
In the original
Star Trek series Captain Kirk’s middle name was Tiberius.
17th president
Andrew Johnson was the only president to sew his own clothes.
Ernest Hemmingway
founded an annual fishing tournament in Cuba, where he lived for many years.
Fidel Castro was the winner of this contest in 1960.
Mark Twain’s
favourite cats were named Sour Mash, Sin, Apollinaris, Beelzebub, Buffalo Bill,
Zoroaster, Blatherskite, and Satan.
In 1968, Steve
McPeak traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on a unicycle. The trip took him
six weeks.
The longest word
used by Shakespeare in any of his works is “honorificabilitudinitatibus,” found
in “Love’s Labours Lost.”
The original
title of the musical “Hello Dolly!” was “Dolly: A Damned Exasperating Woman.”
Spam is so
resistant to spoilage that, if kept in the closed can, it may well outlast
eternity and will certainly live longer than you.
Spam was first
promoted as a health food.
In Korea Spam
comes in gift boxes.
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Uber Facts - Twitter - Secondary Research
Reference
Kissing is good
for your heart. It helps stabilize cardiovascular activity, decreases blood
pressure and decreases cholesterol.
Smiling releases
natural pain killing hormones, endorphins and serotonin, making us feel good.
Men can read
smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Each day, more
than $40 trillion dollars are touched by human hands worldwide.
One hundred cups
of coffee over 4 hours is enough to kill the average human.
Movie theaters
markup the price of popcorn by an average of 1,275%.
In Chinese, the
KFC slogan "finger lickin' good" translates to "eat your fingers
off".
Hippo milk is
pink.
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Other
Facts:
Penguin Bars
QI
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Primary Research - Measurements
Since I have chosen to compare measurements to that of the Empire State Building, I had to chose areas to look at:
Height
eg. bottles, tables, double decker busses, football fields
FACT:
- Coke Bottle - 23cm
Height of the Empire State Building - 443.1792 m (44317 cm)
- 44317 divided by 23 =1926.82608696
The Empire State Building is 1927 Coke Bottles in height.
Double Decker Bus:
Height of a Double Decker Bus - 4.3m
Height of the Empire State Building - 443.1792 m
443.1792 divided by 4.3 = 103.06
The Empire State Building is over 100 times the height of a Double Decker Bus!
Obama:
Obama's height: 1.85 m
Height of the Empire State Building - 443.1792 m
443.1792 divided by 1.85 = 239.556
If Obama stood on his own shoulders 240 times, he would be taller than the Empire State Building!
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Width
eg. Average waist line
Belt Size:
- My Waist Line - 32 Inches - 81.28 cm.
254,000 m² = 159.4 x 159.4 = 159.4 x 4 = Circumference
159.4 x 4 = 637.6m
637.6m in inches= 25,102 inches
If the Empire State Building wore a belt, it's size would be 25,102 inches!
Running Track:
Running Track Length - 400m
Circumference of Empire State - 637.6m
Usain Bolt 100m record: 9.58
9.58 x 6.376 = 61.08
If he stayed the same speed, it would take Usain Bolt 61 seconds to run round the Empire State Building!
World's Fattest Man:
Waistline: 122 inches
Empire State Building's Wasitline: 25,102 inches
25,102 divided by 122 = 205.75
The Empire State Building is 206 times fatter than the worlds fattest man!
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Volume
eg. Liquids- water, small cans - 284ml, normal cans - 330ml, bottles - 500ml, Lakes, Seas
Volume of Empire State Building: 11,277600 m³ = 11,277,900cm³ (11,277,900,000 Litres)
Volume of Novelty Empire State Building (as shown on Amazon): 16.5cm x 12cm x 38.5 cm = 7623 cm³ (7.62300 Litres)
11,277,900,000 divided by 7.62300 = 147,945,696.73
You could fit a "Novelty Empire State Building Puzzle" inside the actual Empire State Building 148 million times!
Tea
Average size of a cup of tea: 225ml
Volume of Empire State Building: 11,277600 m³ = 11,277,900cm³ (11,277,900,000 Litres)
11,277,900,000 divided by 225 = 50,124,000
If you were to "drink" the volume of the Empire State Building in tea, you would have to drink over 50 million cups.
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Weight
eg. average male, average female, an elephant, a flee, a double decker bus
Apple
Average weight of an apple - 150g
Weight of the Empire State - 326586506 kg (32658650600g)
32658650600 divided by 150 = 2,177,224,337
The weight of the Empire State Building is roughly the same as 2 Billion Apples. Now that's a big apple!
Tank
Weight of a tank: 68 tons (61689 kg)
Weight of the Empire State - 326586506 kg
326586506 divided by 61689 = 5294
The Empire State Building weight around the same as 5000 tanks!
Elephant
Average weight for an Elephant - 5,000 kg
Weight of the Empire State - 326586506 kg
326586506 divided by 5000 = 65317
The Empire State Building weights the same as 65,317 Elephants!
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"Stories"
A homonym. "Stories" original relating architecture, but adapted to novels. eg. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, Moby Dick, Nineteen Eighty Four
Amount of stories built a week of the Empire State: 4.5
Number of Pages in Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger, Brown
& Co. edition) 214 pages.
214 x 4.5 = 963
963 divided by 7= 137.571428571
When building the Empire State Building, the workers averaged the build of 4.5 stories a week. If you were to read Catcher in the Rye 4.5 times a week, you would have to read 138 pages a day.
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Electricity
Relating to the amount of times the Empire State Building gets struck by lightening each year. eg. The shock from a plug, a car plug, a car battery, AA batteries
Average Wattage of a Lightening Strike: 1 Billion Volts
Total Volts each year from Lightening Strikes at Empire State: 23 Billion
AA Battery Power: 1.5 Volts
23,000,000,000 divided by 1.5 = 15,333,333,333.3
The Empire State Building gets struct by lightening on average of 23 times a year. This generates enough power to charge over 15 billion AA batteries.
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Cost
Relating to the cost of production of the Empire State Building. Average UK wage, the cost of Fredo's, a Double Cheeseburger, certain brand of cigarettes
Rolls Royce Phantom
Cost of brand new Rolls Royce Phantom: £305,000 ($483,943.39)
Cost of the build of the Empire State Building: $40,948,900
40,948,900 divided by 483,943.39 = 84.6150621047
For the cost of building the Empire State Building, you could by 84 Rolls Royce Phantoms, with enough change to buy leather seats for all of them.
The Scream - Edvard Munch
Price of "The Scream" : $120,000,000
Cost of Empire State Building Build: $40,000,000
The cost of building the Empire State Building is just a third of the price of "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.
One Direction
Average Price of a Ticket To See One Direction: £33.75 ($53.39)
Capacity of the O2: 20,000
53.39 x 20000 = 1,067,800
Cost of Empire State Building Build: $40,000,000
40,000,00 divided by 1,067,800 = 37.46
For the same price as building the Empire State Building, you could book out the whole of the 02 Arena and see One Direction 37 times!
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Time
Relating to the time it took to build the Empire State Building. eg. TV programmes, films, lectures, "french lunches"
Friends
Number of Episodes in FRIENDS x Duration = 236 x 22 = 5192 mins
Duration taken to build the Empire State Building: 7,000,000 man hours (420,000,000 mins)
420,000,000 divided by 5192 = 80893.7
You could watch every episode of Friends 80 thousand times for the time it took to build the Empire State Building.
Walking
Average Walking Speed: 3 Miles an Hour
Duration taken to build the Empire State Building: 7,000,000 man hours
7,000,000 times by 3 = 21,000,000 Miles
Distance Around the World at Equator - 24,901.55 miles
21,000,000 divided by 24,901.55 = 843
It would take you the same time to walk around the world 843 times as to build the Empire State Building. (If you never stop!)
Skydiving
Terminal Velocity of a Skydiver: 124mph (55.6 m/s)
Height of the Empire State Building: 443.2m
443.2 divided by 55.6 = 7.971
If a Skydiver jumped off the Empire State Building, it would take 8 seconds to hit the ground.
Raindrop
Average speed a raindrop drops at: 9m/s
Height of the Empire State Building: 443.2m
443.2 divided by 9 = 49.24
It takes a raindrop 49 seconds to hit the ground from the height of the Empire State Building!
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Windows
Relating to how many windows that the Empire State Building has. eg. the average home, Leeds "Parkinsons Building"
White House
Number of Windows in the White House: 147
Number of Windows in the Empire State Building: 6500
6500 divided by 147 = 44.2
There are 44 times as many windows in the Empire State Building than the White House.
Boeing 777
Number of windows on a Boeing 777: 132
Number of Windows in the Empire State Building: 6500
6500 divided by 32 = 203.1
203 Boeing 777's have the same number of windows as the Empire State Building.
House of Parliament
Number of Windows in the House of Parliament: 3800
Number of Windows in the Empire State Building: 6500
There are double as many windows in the Empire State Building than the Houses of Parliament
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People
Relating to how many people it took to build the Empire State Building. eg. the number of people in Blazin' Squad, S Club 7, a certain country/ city.
Heathrow
Number of people who fly from Heathrow to JFK each day: 2910
Number of people working on the Empire State Building at one time: 3,400
Roughly the same number of people fly from Heathrow to JFK each day as the number of people working on the Empire State Building at any given time.
Tourism
Number of People who visit the Empire State Building each day: 40,000
Number of people working on the Empire State Building at one time: 3,400
Roughly 10 times the amount of people flock to the Empire State Building each day than the number of workers that built it.
Vatican
Population of Vatican; 832
Population of Monaco: 35,000
Number of People who visit the Empire State Building each day: 40,000
More people visit the Empire State Building each day than the population of Monaco and the Vatican put together.
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