Murphy and O'Brien go out to the woods, they come to a clearing and see an abandoned well.
Murphy said 'I wonder how deep that well is?'
O'Brien said, 'There's one way we could figure it out'.
Murphy says, 'How's that?'
O'Brien says, 'We drop something down it, we time how long it takes to hit the bottom, you multiply that time by 32 feet per second squared, the rate at which objects fall in a vacuum, subtract a little for wind resistance and we've got the depth of the well'.
Murphy says, ' What are you going to drop down it?' Then O'Brien looked all around and he saw this big heavy log lying on the ground. Next he squats down by the log and, using his legs correctly, he gets it up onto his shoulders and staggers over to the edge of the well, tips it up, drops it into the well and they start to count, 'One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three .................... '
SPLASH!!!!
Murphy said, 'Three seconds!'
O'Brien said, 'Quick, multiply that time 32 feet per second squared!'
'288 feet!', Murphy said. 'Subtract a little for wind resistance, let's say 18 feet. This well is 270 feet deep'.
As he finished the calculation Murphy shouts, 'LOOK OUT!!' and he pushed O'Brien backwards as a goat ran between them and jumped head first down the well.
Murphy said, 'My God, I've never seen anything like that !!'.
Just then a farmer walked into the clearing and said, 'What's going on here boys?'
O'Brien says, 'We just figured out the depth of this well to be about 270 feet deep, and then the strangest thing happened.
A goat ran between the two of us and jumped head first down into the well.'
The farmer said, 'Thank heaven it wasn't one of my goats.'
Murphy asked, 'How do you know it wasn't?'
The farmer replied, 'Because each of my goats are tied on long leads to big heavy logs.'
