Kepong: A Calculation

Let’s move on from giant steps to something I have given a lot of thought to (when I say a lot, it usually means 3 seconds as my mind tends to wonder somewhere else rather quickly…look at that nice keyboard, shiny).

My friend James who’s a kite enthusiast always goes to this place in Kepong to er… play with his kites. You can’t miss it if you drive down the MRR2, you can see a few kite enthusiasts with their super agile aerodynamically efficient kites made of… I don’t know, bits of the Space Shuttle and eagles I guess. The place is called the Kepong Metropolitan Park, lovely place.

Anyway, everytime I go to Kepong.. I wonder to myself.. why is it called Kepong? If it’s from the Bahasa Melayu word ‘kepong’ it means ‘to surround’ but kepong has a distinct military flavour to it. And as I mentioned before, my mind tends make silly connections… such as… oh you know, things like how many tanks does it need to kepong Kepong?

Let’s assume something very ordinary: for example, a huge foreign army is on the warpath, and they want to conquer the best piece of land for kite flying in the world. They plan to send all their M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank in order to lay siege to Kepong, maybe they also want those bits of the Space Shuttle in the kites back. But their generals are in a quandary.

How many tanks should they send?

Let’s help those silly generals with some simple calculations.

FACT: Kepong has an area of 11.42 square km.

I’m going to lazily assume that Kepong is in the shape of a square (as noted by a commentator in my previous post, I ain’t no Charlie Eppes).

To get a length of the side to Square Kepong, we look at the square root of its total area (11.42km) which is 3.38km. The length of all 4 sides is than calculated to be 13.52km or 13,520m.

A mean looking Abrams tank

An M1A1 Abrams has a width of 3.66 meters.

Therefore to get the number of tanks: 13,520/3.66 = 3,694 tanks. There you go kids, it will require that amount of tanks, sitting next to each other with zero gaps in between. After some deft maneuvers, they will eventually surround Kepong.

But before we worry that our prime kite flying land will fall to foreign hands, I’m sure Kepong’s favourite daughter and very own  Superwoman will save the day. You go girl!

Pro graphic for people who don't like to read "Kepong: A Calculation"

Filed under: Random Calculations, Blog4FT, Jaclyn Victor, Kepong, KL, Kuala Lumpur, Superwoman

Setapak: A Calculation

I like the TV series Numb3rs. It’s about this maths genius who helps solve crimes for the FBI by using mathematics.

Let’s do something similar today, lets use maths to possibly describe how we get names.. and today’s subject is Setapak, KL.

Setapak in Bahasa Melayu is literally translated to “One Step”. From Cousin Wiki, we gathered that it was named thus due to its figuratively close location to KL. Another explanation is the name is a tribute to “Batu Tapak”, an orang asli headman. Both explanations sound logical and they make sense.

.. but what if, Setapak was not named figuratively. Or named after a person.

What if Setapak is literally named? Maybe years ago it was so small that it was literally “One Step” in area. But times have changed, it’s a big suburb of KL now. How big would the person be to have a single step that bridges the Setapak of today?

Let’s crunch some numbers:

First, we need a control point. Using the highly scientific process of obtaining accurate measurements, I used an old measuring tape and eyeballed the length of my step to around 65cm and I’m 1.7m tall. Therefore, My height to step ratio is = 1.7/0.65 = 2.615

I’m going to lazily assume that the Setapak area is the Wangsa Maju parliamentary area which is 13.91 square km. I’m also assuming that Setapak is in the shape of a box to make the calculations (and my life) much easier. To get the length of each side of that box, we look to square roots. And that is 3.72km. We will use this number as the length of the step.

Therefore we can safely assume that in order to have a step of 3.72km, our person needs to be 3.72×2.615 = 9.7km tall. Yup, if Setapak was named today it will be named after a giant 9.7km tall! That is more than 21 Petronas Twin Towers tall!

Pro graphic for people who don't like to read "Setapak: A Calculation"

Whatever the origin of the name Setapak, it’s a place called home to more than 150,000 people, a healthy mix of Malays, Chinese, Indians and others.

Or viewing it from another angle, how many steps would it be to walk from end to end? The answer is 3.72/0.00065 = 5,723 steps. Limaributujuhratusduapuluhtigatapak just doesn’t have the same ooomph as Setapak right?

Filed under: Random Calculations, Blog4FT, KL, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur, Petronas Twin Towers, Setapak