Freeze The Balls Off A Brass Monkey

[KAknight]

This might have been posted before, but I haven't seen it before. I learned something new.


In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a, “Monkey," with sixteen round indentations. If this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make, "Brass Monkeys." Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much
faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped
too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the cannon balls
would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

[hirschY]

LMAO

Im going home, good laugh before I log out....

[Knothead]

KAknight, that one sounds SO far-fetched, it's probably absolutely true.... er...is it really?

[ben-the-slacker]

ROFLMAO!

[Gomer]

Hate to rain on your parade... but that story doesn't hold water. The physics behind it:

Assuming a 28C change in temperature, a 20cm diameter cannonball (guess), a coeffecient of thermal expansion for brass of 19x10^-6 per degree C, a coeffecient of thermal expansion for iron of 12x10^-6 per degree C.

The diameter of the cannonball will change by 0.0666 mm. The diameter of the monkey will change by 0.1055 mm. The net change betwen the two is 0.0389 mm.

I doubt that the tolerances were that close to begin with, so any change in diameter would lead to the cannonballs sticking a little rather then popping out.

Even if you were to put a 2 m row of balls in the monkey with all the edges touching, the net change in length of the brass and the cannon balls would be about .389 mm. I am sure there was more wiggle room then that.

Big discussion on that it the past.

[vass0922]

Hmm
For some reason I just can't see "Gomer" speaking of the "coeffecient of thermal expansion"... just doesn't seem right


Welll goolllleeee

No offense gomer, just kinda ironic

Yep I'd heard this one before, but also a good addition to my crazy analogies thread

[Knothead]

Aw, nuts!

[EnglishMike]

from snopes.com
Origins: Somebody's fanciful imagination is at work cooking up spurious etymologies again. In short, this origin for the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" is nonsense because:
Not even the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, records a usage of "brass monkey" like the one presented here.

When references to "brass monkeys" started appearing in print in the mid-19th century, they did not always mention balls or cold temperatures. It was sometimes cold enough to freeze the ears, tail, nose, or whiskers off a brass monkey. Likewise, it was sometimes hot enough to "scald the throat" or "singe the hair" of a brass monkey. These usages are inconsistent with the putative origins offered here.

Warships didn't store cannonballs (or "round shot") on deck around the clock, day after day, on the slight chance that they might go into battle. Space was a precious commodity on sailing ships, and decks were kept as clear as possible in order to allow room for hundreds of men to perform all the tasks necessary for ordinary ship's functions. (Stacking round shot on deck would also create the danger of their breaking free and rolling around loose on deck whenever the ship encountered rough seas.) Cannonballs were stored elsewhere and only brought out when the decks had been cleared for action.

Particularly diligent gunners (not "masters," who were in charge of navigation, sailing and pilotage, not ordnance) would have their crews chip away at imperfections on the surface of cannonballs to make them as smooth as possible, in the hopes that this would cause them fly truer. They did not leave shot on deck, exposed to the elements, where it would rust.
Nobody really knows where the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" came from, but the explanation offered here certainly isn't the answer.

[tony_j15]

This thread has been dead long enough to rot the balls off a brass monkey

[Agent_Embryo]

Brass Monkey is a drink.