Physics

So my sister (a senior in high school) has a physics project for her AP physics class that's due sometime in the next week or so. She's supposed to watch some movie and see whether or not the movie is obeying the laws of physics and prove her postulation. The movie she picked, of course, was one of the Lord of the Rings movies (I think Return of the King).

One of the physics things she's looking at is when Legolas climbs up the oliphant's leg via arrows. She's trying to figure out whether or not the arrow would actually hold Legolas' weight.

Having a degree and a half in aerospace engineering, she, of course, asked me.

Not having worked with structures at all since I took the class cough...cough...seven, eight years ago, and not even having done any engineering of the sort for several years now....I'm more than a little rusty. We've found stuff online, and I could probably dig out a book from under Jesse's house to figure it out, but now I'm even more worried than I was that I'm not gonna be able to keep up with all of these young kids who'll be in my classes this next year. They're straight out of undergrad...I'm six years out, with the last two having done something completely different.

Speaking of which...I haven't registered for classes yet. Maybe I'll do that right now.