Talk:McKendree cylinder

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McKendree cylinders in fiction[edit]

Check the source. A cylinder having a radius of 1000 km and a length of 10000 km contains a frustum area of 31.4 billion square kilometers. It is likely that the living space would be far more than the stated 63 million square kilometers. Or perhaps the text cites incorrect dimensions, rather than an incorrect amount of surface area devoted to living space. 74.47.81.194 (talk) 09:30, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, no. You are confusing the VOLUME of the cylinder (billions of CUBIC km) with the SURFACE AREA of the inside (millions of SQUARE km). YodaWhat (talk) 03:18, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While of course you're correct, I'm confused by McKendree's original figures. He states:

A 461 km radius cylinder with endcaps, with a 4610 km long cylinder portion, has a surface area on that cylinder portion of 1.22 x 10¹² m²., half of which would be available for habitation (the other half being taken up with windows).

That's 1.22 x 10⁶ km², if I'm not wildly mistaken? In other words, only 1.2 million km².

So far as I know, the area of the side of a cylinder is 2πrh. So 6.2831 * 461 * 4610 = 13 352 906.951. Multiply that by a million for m² and we get 1.335 x 10¹³ (ish). The article is right.

Was McKendree talking about a different dimension? Or just a bit rushed in his calculations? I find it far easier to imagine I'm wrong than he was! Perhaps he mixed up the area of the endcaps (1.32e+12 if you use 460km as a starting radius) with the cylinder portion. Cheers, Basie (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Original design area[edit]

The curved area of a 460 km by 4600 km cylinder is more like 3 billion square kilometres than 13 million. NelC (talk) 03:45, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, no. You are confusing the VOLUME of the cylinder (billions of CUBIC km) with the SURFACE AREA of the inside (millions of SQUARE km). YodaWhat (talk) 03:19, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly merge with O’Neill cylinder[edit]

Judging by the object’s description, this is just a scaled up O'Neill cylinder design. Is it really notable to warrant an article separate from O’Neill cylinders? — Babylon AS 09:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]