The Length of that Stupid Piece of Blasted String!

The sensible answer to this question is to try to define the limits. If we want our answer to be safe against contradiction, we must set the lower limit, fairly low, nothing much shorter than, say, a centimetre, is likely to be classified as a piece of string. It might be a piece of fibre or something but not a piece of string in normal parlance.

So what is the upper limit? This must obviously be dictated by the practicalities of string manufacture and by the convenience of handling. Without making an investigation at a string factory, we can guess that it is unlikely that such a factory would install cranes above 1 ton capacity and since the string must be made on to some reel or spool, it is unlikely that a single piece would be much over a tonne. Working out the limits between string and thread, we can equally guess that no one would classify a material as string at a diameter below 1.5mm and fine string is likely to be dense or it will fall apart so we can guess that a density of 0.7 as being the worst case. Calculating all this out we come to an answer. Not a very precise one but one which is a good deal more precise than many answers which are confidently advanced in astronomy and physics.

The length of a piece of string is:

5822195 ± 5822194.99 metres

At 0.7kg/litre .........

1429 litres or approx 1.429 cubic metres

Therefore maximum length ...

So the string length lies between 1cm and 11644.39km which can be expressed as above.

Taken from "A Mensa Puzzle Book", Victor Serebriakoss; Treasure Press, Bond House, St John's Square, Wolverhampton (1991)

This book also gives the answer to the question "What came first, the chicken or the egg?"