We're going to assume a Twinkie is a simple box
July 15, 2016 8:49 AM   Subscribe

Serious Eats' J. Kenji López-Alt has done the math, and Ghostbusters' 35-foot-long, 600lb Twinkie just isn't possible.

With bonus Twinkie Calculator, naturally.
posted by uncleozzy (57 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, d'uh. That Twinkie would be made and held together by the horror that is eldritch magic. It's not supposed to be possible under the laws of nature--only under the laws of That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know.

(Source: Tobin's Spirit Guide)
posted by magstheaxe at 8:57 AM on July 15, 2016 [27 favorites]


The assumption, though, is that since Egon is using the Twinkie as a metaphor, it's a normal Twinkie of those dimensions, rather than an expression of psychokinetic energy, like Stay-Puft (even though it's a metaphor for psychokinetic energy).

I'm just saying. That's a big Twinkie.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:19 AM on July 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've been a fan of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt for a while, but this might be the best thing he's ever posted.

We need to get him and the XKCD guy in a room together.
posted by SansPoint at 9:23 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Turns out.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:23 AM on July 15, 2016


Zingers > Twinkies
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:34 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


But how do these calculations align with the volumetric studies of Professor Wayne Szalinski? And why does the aforementioned Szalinski bear such a remarkable physical resemblance to one Louis Tully, Esq., CPA? There's more to this mystery than a mere Twinkie, I tell you.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:35 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Atom Eyes Krimpets > Zingers > Twinkies

FTFY.
posted by SansPoint at 9:37 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


"Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie 35 feet long, weighing approximately 600 pounds."

Obviously Egon would have have done all the math in this article in his head and would just assume anyone listening would understand that he's clearly talking about a Twinkie that is huge but much less dense than a regular Twinkie. So the meaning of this analogy is something like "Supernatural activity is normally concentrated in a few small areas, but today it's spread widely and diffusely throughout the city."

Ghosts don't seem very dense.
posted by straight at 9:40 AM on July 15, 2016 [9 favorites]


Krimpets > Zingers > Twinkies

OK, if we're just making up words now: Plotzibbles > Krimpets
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:44 AM on July 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


What he is not taking into account is that Dr. Spengler is talking about a Twinky made of ghosts. Protoplasm is way lighter than shelf stable sponge cake with a creamy filling.
posted by spacely_sprocket at 9:45 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Atom Eyes: You poor soul, you must live in a place not served by Tastykake. Do what you can to track some down.
posted by SansPoint at 9:49 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


The GB Twinkie does not exist solely in our universe/dimension/reality.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 9:58 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


First, assume a perfectly spherical ghost..
posted by FatherDagon at 10:00 AM on July 15, 2016 [11 favorites]


JKLA, dude, you took that and ran with it. Is he getting paid by the word?
posted by GuyZero at 10:03 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think the "Large and not very dense" interpretation is the best, even if it's fanwankery on the order of "Doing the kessel run fast means travelling a shorter distance"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:04 AM on July 15, 2016


You poor soul, you must live in a place not served by Tastykake. Do what you can to track some down.

I'm hesitant to eat any product that's name ends in -kake, but I will try my best to locate some in my area.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:06 AM on July 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


Though he likely wasn't the first author to write about the supernatural this way, I've always loved Stephen King's portrayal of such in the book "The Shining".

It wasn't "eek, there's a ghost in the hotel!" but rather, the hotel is a place where realities and time and universes can shift, and the hotel you walk into and believe you are in isn't necessarily the same one as the one you wake up to at 3am. And it's not going to stay fully in any of those realities.

ok, probably off topic...
posted by jeff-o-matic at 10:09 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


By my calculations, a Twinkie that was 3901440 km long (2.39 x 1030 kg) would collapse in on itself, forming a highly-dense and almost perfectly spherical neutron Twinkie.
posted by dephlogisticated at 10:13 AM on July 15, 2016 [8 favorites]


Since moles are similar enough to twinkies on an astronomical scale here's some additional related reading: A mole of moles
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:20 AM on July 15, 2016


(Source: Tobin's Spirit Guide)

Spates' Catalog disproved this.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:23 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


By my calculations, a Twinkie that was 3901440 km long (2.39 x 1030 kg) would collapse in on itself, forming a highly-dense and almost perfectly spherical neutron Twinkie.

Well, the distribution of the filling is obviously not homogeneous within the twinkie, so there's a decent chance of having a creme hotspot on the neutron twinkie and the differences in compression rates imparting a spin such that it turns into a pulsar twinkie. What would twinkie Hawking radiation look like?
posted by LionIndex at 10:25 AM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


I had assumed all along that it was more of a GedankenTwinkie...
posted by sexyrobot at 10:33 AM on July 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


even if it's fanwankery on the order of "Doing the kessel run fast means travelling a shorter distance"

I'll take fanwankery that justifies the apparent mistake over mere nitpicking every time.
posted by straight at 10:33 AM on July 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


What would twinkie Hawking radiation look like?

Particles of sugar-saturated whipped fat, with a subtle blue glow.

Cleaning out the detectors is a royal pain.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:37 AM on July 15, 2016


Yeah this is enjoyable fanwankery that doesn't sit there insulting the original creator(s) being smug-er than thou (except for one engineer != scientist quip).

Nerditry of this order shouldn't be a bad thing but frequently it's combined with a shittier-than-thou attitude that ends up being a huge turn-off.
posted by fragmede at 10:41 AM on July 15, 2016


Let us consider a very short perfect cylinder (where r is far greater than h) covered with small perfect spheres....
posted by Kabanos at 10:44 AM on July 15, 2016


That poor man.
posted by Jode at 10:48 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


A 35-foot long twinkie-shaped box of air would weigh 349 lb. so to get to only 600 lb., we need to get from a density of 0.32-0.37 g/cm^3 to 0.002 g/cm^3. polysaccharide aerogels of 0.05 g/cm^3 have been made, so only 25x to go. What would it taste like, though?
posted by morganw at 10:58 AM on July 15, 2016


What would it taste like, though?

Couldn't be much worse.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:18 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


why does ray have multiple unwrapped twinkies sitting on his desk in the first place
posted by beerperson at 11:39 AM on July 15, 2016


beerperson: They're Egon's. It's implied throughout the entire first film that Egon is a massive sugar junkie.
posted by SansPoint at 11:40 AM on July 15, 2016


I liked that piece. It was fun fanwankery. However...

...it completely misses the point. Spengler knows that the physics of the example don't add up, and that even if it did, the Twinkie wouldn't be stable. That is the exact point he is making. The amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area makes no sense and is unstable. Just like a 35-foot-long, 600lb Twinkie.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:54 AM on July 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


okay but why does egon have his twinkies on ray's desk
posted by beerperson at 11:57 AM on July 15, 2016


beerperson You expect him to hold all those Twinkies while he's working?
posted by SansPoint at 11:59 AM on July 15, 2016


I think this all becomes obvious if you consider that time is a simple box.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:07 PM on July 15, 2016


As long as there's no twerking, that Twinkie can be any size you want.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:14 PM on July 15, 2016


>I'm hesitant to eat any product that's name ends in -kake<

People eat stuff like kale. One letter man, one stinking letter... HOW BAD COULD IT BE COMPARED TO KALE?
posted by twidget at 12:24 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


okay but why does egon have his twinkies on ray's desk

this is a common dominance display in the ghostbusting world, it signals that he is the alphabuster
posted by poffin boffin at 12:30 PM on July 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


In the Ghostbusters universe, normal twinkies are filled with ghost essence - not slime, but ghost itself. To assume anything else is to doubt Egon's abilities as a scientist, and I reject that premise.
posted by zippy at 1:41 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


so is bill murray negging the EPA guy
posted by beerperson at 1:43 PM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


The real question is: how much oil would it take to deep-fry this Twinkie (apart from all the other, related logistics)?
posted by datawrangler at 1:44 PM on July 15, 2016


'this man has no dick'
'i'll show you, venkman'
posted by beerperson at 1:44 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Consider a spherical Twinkie.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:01 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Surely the maths are wrong? Egon's Twinkie is 104.9 times the length of a 1984 Twinkie, not 108. Aren't all the calculations off on that basis?

Am I being an idiot here? I can't see how I'm being an idiot here. But given that no-one else on Metafilter has yet pointed out the error I'm perceiving, I feel like I must be wrong. I surely can't be Metafilter's biggest pedant, can I?

God I hope I'm wrong.
posted by howfar at 3:12 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Egon's Twinkie is 104.9 times the length of a 1984 Twinkie, not 108.

104.6, even, but he's somewhat arbitrarily converting to metric and rounding the metric values to three significant digits before the next operation. Because science, apparently. But yeah, to get 108 you have to use the modern, slightly shorter twinkie. You could also stick to feet and divide 35 with 0.3 and get something entirely different.

Also note that both twinkies have the same size if you measure them in feet, and have no weight if you measure them in tons. Interesting stuff.
posted by effbot at 4:13 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


howfar: Egon's Twinkie is 108x the size of a modern one. I'm guessing he started with the modern measurement, someone pointed out the size change, and he decided not to redo the math. :)
posted by zompist at 4:13 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


104.6, even, but he's somewhat arbitrarily converting to metric and rounding the metric values to three significant digits before the next operation.

Comment flagged as fantastic for proving that I'm still far from Metafilter's biggest pedant. Or at least far from its most mathematically literate pedant.
posted by howfar at 4:34 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


>> What would it taste like, though?
> Couldn't be much worse.


Maybe Dorito flavored? Pepsico patent on "Method of Loading Flavor into an Aerogel and Flavor Impregnated Aerogel Based on Food Grade Materials". Spengler and J.K.L.A. aren't the only ones considering 600 pound, 35 foot Twinkies.

How It's Made season 27, episode 9 had a segment on aerogels & yes, I was hooked. It's from this year so $2, but there are other videos demonstrating the process (at home!)
posted by morganw at 6:05 PM on July 15, 2016


Zingers > Twinkies
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:34 AM on July 15 [1 favorite +] [!]


Pistols at dawn, sirrah!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:53 PM on July 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


And if you slander Little Debbie, I'm gonna Aaron Burr your ass.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:54 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I can't help but wonder if the differences in the Twinkie recipe constituents, historical versus modern, were taken into account here. Because the modern Twinkie is like a bad photocopy of one from the 1980s.

Seems like lazy journalism to me. Just saying.
posted by monopas at 8:45 PM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


... mathematically literate pedant.

technically speaking, it would be a numerate pedant.
posted by zippy at 9:01 PM on July 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


It says that a 600-lb Twinkie would be 6 feet long. I thought, a Twinkie is basically a really light cake. How the hell does a 6" high really light cake weigh 50 lbs?

I did the math myself, using a 1.1" x 3.9" x 1.5" Twinkie weighing 1.4 oz (0.218 oz/cu. in.) and came up with 551.7 lbs, or 46 lbs for the 6" x 20.3" x 27.7" slice. Or 23 lbs for a 3" high sheet cake. Still seems a little heavy but I guess it makes sense after all.

Feeling dirty after all these calculations with Imperial units.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 9:50 PM on July 15, 2016


Actually, in the ghostbusters universe, the units of mass (and therefore weight) are defined in terms of twinkies. Egon is simply describing the International Prototype of the Twinkie* (the "IPT", also known as "le grande twinkie"), which is approximately 35 feet long and weighs exactly 600 lbs by definition. This means that what is called a "pound" in the ghostbusters universe is closer to 200 lbs in our unit system.

* Twinkies are a good choice to build a prototype mass out of because, as everyone knows, they're so full of preservatives and science that they never decay
posted by Pyry at 12:05 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


technically speaking, it would be a numerate pedant.

Even more technically speaking, this is incorrect. "Numeracy" refers only to the basic skills of number and arithmetic, while "literacy" has come, as a result of metonymic use, to refer broadly to knowledge and competence in any subject area.

I now have no idea whether I'm taking the piss out of myself, defending my sentence or beanplating an interesting quirk of language.

I am meta, hear me filter.
posted by howfar at 1:23 AM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Zingers > Twinkies

And the old Dolly Madison Zingers were better than the current acquired-by-Hostess Zingers.
posted by HeroZero at 6:12 AM on July 16, 2016


Comment flagged as fantastic for proving that I'm still far from Metafilter's biggest pedant

Well, you spotted the mistake in the first place, so I think you're ahead of me :-)
posted by effbot at 6:17 AM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


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