Which is more difficult: achieving world peace or making a 1-ton book about world peace?
Teacher Betsy Sawyer and her Bookmakers and Dreamers Club at Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School are tackling that question, sort of. While they meet on Mondays after school to discuss peace, they are also attempting to break the Guinness record for the biggest book in the world.
The strategy the club initiated four years ago to compile material for the massive tome - soliciting letters from local and world figures on the subject of peace - has been more successful than they expected. So far, they have received about 700 letters from such luminaries as the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Jimmy Carter, Sawyer said.
At present, the biggest book in the world is a 10-foot-high by 9-foot-wide, 300-page, 557-pound text in Denver, Guinness officials say. The middle school club's book, "Pages for Peace," would be 12 feet by 10 feet, said Sawyer.
But, as in most big projects, unforeseen challenges have popped up. The club estimates it will cost $500,000 to print the book, for example. And then there are the laws of physics. You can't construct and store a 120-square-foot book just anywhere, after all.
Projections put the weight of the book's cover, binding, and 500 double-sided pages, including the ink, at 2,000 pounds, Sawyer said. The engineering challenges those dimensions present have familiarized Sawyer and her students with issues they didn't consider when they set out to break the record. Some of those issues are so complex, the students need engineers to help them.
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