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Message In Bottle Found After 98 Years Near Shetland
An anonymous reader writes "A drift bottle released in June 1914 by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation has been found. Part of a project to help map currents, 1,890 scientific research bottles were released around Scotland. Only 315 of them were ever recovered. From the article: 'Mr Leaper, 43, who found the bottle east of Shetland, explained: "As we hauled in the nets I spotted the bottle neck sticking out and I quickly grabbed it before it fell back in the sea. It was very exciting to find the bottle and I couldn't wait to open it."'"
Yes, but was he awarded the promised six pence?
Cyrano de Maniac
BSD Is Dying
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According to this, sixpence translates to 2.5p, or 0.025L (not even going to try using the right character, /. will eat it). And according to this PDF, the Pound was worth roughly 76 times more in 2005 (the year it was written) than it was in 1914. So it comes out to be about 2L, or about US$3.
$ping 192.168.28.1
Pinging 192.168.28.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.28.1: bytes=32 time=3,092,644,800,000ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.28.1:
Packets: Sent = 1, Received = 1, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3,092,644,800,000ms, Maximum = 3,092,644,800,000ms, Average = 3,092,644,800,000ms
$
Unfortunately, The Police could not be reached for comment.
I am officially gone from
"the Pound was worth roughly 76 times more in 2005 (the year it was written) than it was in 1914."
Less. The pound was worth ~76 times less in 2005 than in 1914. See the graphs on pages 18 and 19.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
how do they know it was near Shetland for 98 years?
They obviously don't. In fact, unless there are some incredibly regular local current loops this bottle could have traveled a very long way.
These were designed to sink to some depth, (but obviously not to the bottom) and flow with the currents, and be below the depth where they
would likely be dashed on the rocks by waves.
Looking at a map of the Atlantic Currents its quite possible these bottles may have covered would be up to the arctic, back down along Greenland, Labrador, delivered to the North Atlantic Drift and back to Shetland. Probably many round such trips over the years.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
"But 1 L(1914) would buy you far more than 1 L(2005), so in that sense it is worth more."
Think about that for a minute.
1 in 1914 = 76 loaves of bread (just a number for example)
1 in 2005 = 1 loaf of bread
In absolutely no sense is it worth more now. It is very simple. If it were truly worth more now, in any way shape or form, you would be getting more than 76 loaves of bread for it.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Remember the story on this site about creating a time capsule to be opened in the future? And everyone was going on about various seals, gas interactions, acid free paper, etc.
Seems like a piece of paper stuck inside a bottle can last a hundred years.
Depends on what you are going to buy with it. Inflation isn't totally uniform. - How much did radios and other consumer electronics cost back then?
It wouldn't be very useful. The air in the bottle would be representative of only that particular day, in that particular place. For example, if it were bottled by a wood fire stove, it would have much higher concentrations of CO2 than the average mass of air
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us