An Honors Chemistry question

Question

In the opening scenes of the movie Riaders of the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones tries to remove a gold idol from a boobytrapped pedestal. He replaces the idol with a bag of sand of approximately equal volume. (density of gold = 19.31g/cm3: density of sand = 2g/cm3

a.Did he have a resonable chance of not activating the mass sensitive bobby trap?

b. In a later scene he and an unscrupulous guide play catch with the idol. Assume that the volume of the idol is about 1.0L If it were solid gold, what mass would the idol have? Is playing catch with it plausible?

Answer 1

a) If the bag is of approximately equal volume, than the bag of sand is a little over 1/10th the weight of the idol. The "mass sensitive" booby trap would be pretty poor to miss the difference.  If you or I were doing it, any weight lighter or heavier than the idol and pfft.

b) 1.0L has a volume of 1000 cc's.  So the idol would weigh about 19.3 kilograms, or a little over 42 lbs.  While it is not impossible to throw a 42 pound object, it would be substantially harder than it appeared in the movie, even given manly heroes and desperate villains.

Never depend on movies for factual content.

Grandpa