Over Analyzing BFDI

How to Build a Lava Ferris Wheel

Today's rather late edition of Over Analyzing BFDI was recommended by u/Yellow_Lettuce, who has asked a question about the material and structure of the lava Ferris wheel from BFDI 24: Insectophobe's Nightmare 2.

First, we need to find the temperature of the lava. In case you didn't know, lava is what you call magma that has risen out of the earth's interior, through processes like volcanic eruptions. Magma is formed from the molten rock inside the Earth, which is heated by the extreme pressures in the mantle. Lava has a temperature of around 1,200 Celsius, or 2150 Fahrenheit. That being said, that temperature is the temperature of lava as it freshly exits the ground, so in reality the lava used in the Ferris wheel would be a lot lower.

Another thing that needs to be addressed is the flow rate of lava. Although it isn't necessary to figure out the structure of the ride, what we can learn is that the Ferris Wheel is quite impossible to even construct, or alt least from what is shown in the episode.

Even on the quick end, lava can only flow at a maximum of about 48 kph, or 30 mph. However, lava can cool within 10 to 15 minutes, forming a hard shell solid enough to walk on. So in order for the lava to not clog up and stop flowing, the Ferris Wheel needs to be within 12 kilometres, or about 7.5 miles of a source of lava. Either Firey built it next to a massive volcano, or he dug a pipe several kilometres deep with the heat tolerance to survive those temperatures.

Speaking of heat tolerance, let's imagine for a second that lava does not cool, and Firey can somehow get it to flow all the way to the Ferris Wheel in a reasonable amount of time. In that case, it's actually really easy to find materials that don't melt in lava.

Steel, one of the most used materials used in Ferris Wheel construction, softens at around 425 Celsius, or a bit under 800 Fahrenheit. And while fresh lava is hotter than that, keep in mind that lava cools relatively quickly. As long as you wait a bit, it's safe to use. I guess that MInecraft is correct, in a way.

Another thing to keep in mind here is the baskets. There doesn't seem to be any sort of drainage system, so it seems that all the lava is caught and stored in the baskets. Lava has a density of 3100Kg/m3, making it over 3 times as dense as water. In that sense, the characters in BFDI wouldn't sink in lava, they'd float quite easily. Another physics breaking glitch.

The baskets appear to have a height of 1/2 of a character, and about 1 character length wide and long. Assuming that the characters have the average height of a human, being about 1.75m, the dimensions of the basket come out to have a radius of 86.5 centimetres, and a length of 175 centimetres. Putting my math to use, that comes out to be a volume of about 2m3, assuming that the baskets are a a half-cylinder. That means that if a basket is filled to the brim with lava, it would be holding over 6200Kg of lava. That's over 6 metric tonnes!

The basket is held up with four cables, meaning that each cable would need to support 1550 Kg. That's around 1.5 kilonewtons of force, if the BFDI world's gravity is the same as our's. Steel cable is entirely capable of lifting up that amount of force, even at half a centimetre of thickness.

In conclusion, it's actually very possible to build a lava Ferris Wheel like the one shown in BFDI. I mean, as long as you ignore the problem of getting the lava to the wheel. Oh, and all the lawsuits of death and 3rd degree burns. Plus, it might start a terrible story arc between a lemon leaf and a pile of fire without a fuel source.

Some things I learned while making this episode: it's annoying as crap to convert units from metric to imperial. That's why I gave up halfway through. If you live in one of those backwards countries that still uses football fields per freedom, just Google it. Even better, learn the system where a metre equals 100 centimetres, not 12 or something.

But hey, that's just a hypothesis.

A CINEMA HYPOTHESIS!

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to u/Yelloe_Lettuce for giving me an actual idea to work off of.