Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 07, 2024

Proving Danae is not an airhead.

Oh, the Mythbusters would have a heyday with this one.

A Heliuphant?

Elephants are endangered enough without Danae’s help

OK, Hydrogen then.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. —Yogi Berra et alia

True, but getting the elephant would be the really hard part.

Would it now trumpet at a higher pitch?

Flooding an elephant’s lungs with helium would suffocate it. You’d need to fill its gut with helium but I don’t think they’d have the capacity to make them float. Plus there would be the after effects. None of us want that. And for that matter, pigeons are bad enough, what if she was successful?

OK, let’s have some phun (physics fun) with this one.

A) trying to close off the trunk, does nothing to retain any gases. The elephant (or is this an ElePhunt?) has a mouth. Which she would have a lot of trouble trying to keep shut. Perhaps not as much trouble as keeping her own mouth shut, but still a lot of trouble…

Which means she fails, although she might get some interesting noises from an upset elephant.

B) Even if she sealed the mouth, the elephant will die for lack of oxygen, as MeanBob says above,

C) Even if she doesn’t care that the Elephant has now been murdered, she isn’t going to be walking around with it following her like a balloon.

Because, (physics here!) the elephant still has its mass! Even if there is little friction because the elephant is airborne, trying to move (or then stop) a moving mass of some tons is not going to be done quickly enough for an impatient idiot like Danae. And even if she could use a motor vehicle to tow it, think about what happens if she tries to make a sharp turn… Her facial expression? See that of Wile E. Coyote when things have gone wrong …

Helium? I’d be more worried about all the work and cost to take care of that elephant!

My father told the tale of being at a prep school (think junior high and high school with uniforms and dorms) where, after a section on chemistry, they convinced the heavyset guy to swallow baking soda and then vinegar so that he’d blimp up with helium and float.

He didn’t die… according to my dad.

It’s not real

It’s a cartoon — Love the smile!

I’d love to hear an Elephant on helium’s trumpet.

You’d have a better chance of floating a donkey.

Her imagination is working.

Check this out for a nice way of looking at our president, whoever that might be. >

Helium is in short supply and expensive. The major source is Russia and they have cut of supply since Ukraine. Helium is used in MRIs to keep the magnets cool.

Wonder where all the strips are about our senile ol’ CinC?Come on, those should just themselves.

Danae’s world is mostly fantasy with herself at the center.

At least it wasn’t hydrogen…..

Or letting her near an elephant, for that matter!

Let’s stop the wasteful use of non-renewable helium

As the elephant said when she tied his trunk shut: “That’s berry fuddy.”

I once had access to a big tank of helium, third shift at a hotel that was closed for the season. I spent quality time making and filling huge plastic bags, tying some sheets of foil to them and just letting them go. One night I got hold of a roll of garment bags and made a 40 footer! I tied the usual sheets of foil to it and let it drift away. I’ll bet the radar at the airport must have shown a lazy UFO that night!

It’s not going to work, Danae.

Danae is why there is a potentially fatal shortage of helium in the world

Wiley: Are you trying to say the republicans are full of hot hair?

….Dad nails it..

It’s a stupid idea anyway.

I agree with Godfreydaniel …. At least it wasn’t hydrogen.

Could you imagine if a spark got close?

Roast elephant steaks, loin, chops and nuggets raining down; a flaming trunk on a string? Oh the humanity!

Sacrificing some of our hard earned helium to replace the hydrogen would make this a goodyear.

Thanks Wiley. I giggled at your drawing and enjoyed the Phun Physics and other commentary. You live up to your comic’s title!

I see nothing but hard times ahead for this elephant. Lions would no longer be afraid of his might roars, which are now mousy squeaks

This only works with spherical elephants in a vaccuum.

16 cu ft of helium per pound.

Gotta plug up the back hole too.

Ask Boeing about Helium leaks…..

This is true. The elephant’s trunk would freeze due to the drop in temperature in theexpanding gas. People have been hurt this way.

“Oh, the humanity!”

As a couple of others have more or less said, it’s certainly possible to have a balloon , dirigible big enough to lift an elephant. They just don’t stretch enough to do it on their own.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road……

Anyone else here old enough to remember Tim Conway ad libbing on The Carol Burnett show about the Siamese circus elephants connected at their trunks. It was bad enough that ome had to walk backwards in the parade, but when one sneezed…

Why should a smart – if weird – kid think that Elephants have less holes than a human?

Be even worse if it were a tank of Hydrogen, I think.

This reminds me of the cartoon of the elephant who hid behind a tree by standing on his trunk.

“I think I seen about everything when I see a elephant fly.” (Dumbo)

I understand that helium is an endangered resource. Not in the solar system as a whole, where the Sun has gargantuan (but unreachable) quantites of it, but here on Earth. Every time some gets liberated, it tends to drift spaceward because it’s really light.

Too many thoughts……

It would be worth trying, assuming a tame elephant can be located

Sure, but you’re overlooking the elephant in the room.

True Dat !