Friday, April 8, 2011

Smaug's Treasure

Have you ever wondered how much Smaug (the dragon from 'The Hobbit') is really worth. Over at Forbes they did the math. At least we get a ballpark as to how much the treasure is worth.

Picture: Wikipedia

"Dragons are long and narrow, so we can safely assume that Smaug can curl comfortably up on a treasure mound with same diameter as his body length – 19.2 feet.
How high is the mound? Well, at one point in The Hobbit, Bilbo climbs up and over the mound, and we know that Hobbits are approximately three feet tall. Assuming the mound is twice the height of Bilbo, we can say that the mound has a height of approximately 6 feet – like a six foot tall man climbing over a 12 foot mound of coins; substantial but not insurmountable.
To keep the math relatively simple and to avoid complications like integrating the partial volume of a sphere, we can approximate Smaug’s bed of gold and silver to be a cone, with a radius of 9.6 feet (1/2 the diameter) and a height of 7 feet (assuming the weight of the dragon will smush down the point of the cone by about a foot).
Now we can calculate the volume of Smaug’s treasure mound:
V= 1/3 π r2 h = 1/3 * π * 9.62 * 7 = 675.6 cubic feet"

Long story short, they value his treasure at about $8.6 billion. Not bad, eh?

You might also want to check out their list of the 15 richest fictional characters, featuring Bruce Wayne, Mr. Burns, Gordon Gekko and many more.

Can you guess who the richest fictional character is? Hint: He's not human.

(Forbes via io9)

11 comments:

  1. Mr Burns isn't that wealthy. When he tried buying his son's (Rodney Dangerfield) entrance into Yale, they said he'd need to donate an international airport and he screamed "IM NOT MADE OF AIRPORTS!"

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  2. The hobbit is one of my favorite books of all time, and that's a long of money! I have no idea who is the richest fictional character that's a hard one.

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  3. i am still wondering, is the hobbit (the novels) actualyl better than the lord of the ring movies? they are inspired on this right?

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  4. The Hobbit was actually written after the Lord of the Rings novels as a prequel.


    Personally, I prefer the Rings trilogy to the Hobbit.

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  5. Btw Scrooge McDuck is the richest fictional character ever. Duh!

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  6. I am thanking god for dragon to be a fiction forever.Who wants a fire breathing creature which could crawl thro all narrow places

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  7. I'm going with scrooge mcduck too. I've seen him swimming in it myself! hehe

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  8. The hobbit was writen and published before LOTR actually. Tolkin actually changed parts of the hobbit after is first edition release so the LOTR books would fit in. The second edition Hobbit book was different to the first...i.e Golum let Bilbo take the ring after loosing the 'riddles in the dark' game and showed him out of the mountain. In the second edition book, Golum tries to kill Bilbo after loosing and pursued him there after.

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