If the Earth were 100 pixels wide • Hacker News Board

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#41

Post by VLM » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:54 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #30

petercooper wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or.. an electron is 100 pixels wide..

Better use a proton instead. Electrons are point-like particles, ignoring their wave characteristics, so don't have a "size" per se.

Could make a cool animation showing off the fine structure constant going from classical electron radius to Bohr radius and Compton wavelength. That would be a total zoom factor of 18769 which is about right. The hard part would be designing an infographic to make sense to people who probably don't "get" what the bohr radius is, etc.

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#42

Post by JDGM » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:54 PM UTC

vadman wrote: post #10

Not sure if it's a bug or a typo, but the "width" (diameter) of the Earth is 12,742 km, not 6,371 (which is the radius).

You're right! How frustrating. The most frustrating is that I was just about to share this with some friends and know that I now risk either: 1.) Them smugly pointing that inaccuracy out and failing to enjoy how cool this is otherwise, or 2.) The website author correcting it by the time my friends see the link so any "btw there's a typo" comment I make being confusing. I'm going to share it anyway!

EDIT: I fear this may be worse than we had initially thought. The diameters of the Moon and Mars suffer the same problem and the pixel distances appear to be based on those wrong numbers so actually all the "apparent" distances are twice as long as they should be. (My working was to check that the Earth was indeed 100 pixels on my screen, calculate that 1 pixel = 127.42km, multiply that by the claimed "6033 pixels" to the moon to get 768724.86 which is twice as large as it should be...)

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#43

Post by bithive123 » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:55 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #14

Nicely done. A biology scaled version would be cool. Like if a virus was 100 pixels wide...

http://htwins.net/scale2/

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#44

Post by pjungwir » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:57 PM UTC

Here is a photo of the Earth and Moon, with the to-scale distance between them. It makes a great desktop background:

http://www.traipse.com/earth_and_moon/

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#45

Post by jdechko » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:57 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #15

related: interactive scale of the universe http://htwins.net/scale2/

The whole time I was browsing that (incredible) site, all I could think of was the intro to The Big Bang Theory.

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#46

Post by codeulike » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 9:58 PM UTC

This simple graphic of the Earth and Moon and the distance between them, to scale, is also pretty thought provoking

http://www.traipse.com/earth_and_moon/index.html

edit: just large image: http://www.traipse.com/earth_and_moon/earth_and_moon_1280.jp...

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#47

Post by guy2221 » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 10:02 PM UTC

shardling wrote: post #32

It bothers me a little that they show the motion against a starfield like that -- the stars are so far away that they won't shift perceptibly even on a journey to mars. I mean, I don't have any better ideas, but given that the whole point is to give an idea of scale I wish they'd come up with something else. :)

You're talking about a first-person view, aren't you? But we don't start with that, we start with a third-person view of Earth and then "pan" across the sky...

So wouldn't panning across the sky from whatever vantage point actually produce that movement? Same as when you point a telescope and pan, the stars move against your view...?

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#48

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 10:02 PM UTC

Very rarely have I seen a single idea so perfectly illustrated. Impeccable timing and presentation. Unexpected, every step of the way. Kudos.

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#49

Post by shardling » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 10:02 PM UTC

afreak wrote: post #20

izend wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to imagine if Mars and Venus were swapped would Venus then be habitable?

No. Simply put: the core is likely solidified just like Mars and its magnetic field is very weak, causing the weather to be influenced by only its rotation and solar winds. It would be far more difficult to terraform than Mars really. Also a Venusian day is something like 5,800 hours and its surface temperature is capable of melting lead.

On the other hand, if it was where Mars is, it would probably have a different rotation speed (and thus a different length of day.)

The period of Venus's rotation is anomalously long, and whatever caused it probably wouldn't have been in effect had it been further out.

Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide

#50

Post by millerm » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 10:05 PM UTC

shardling wrote: post #32

It bothers me a little that they show the motion against a starfield like that -- the stars are so far away that they won't shift perceptibly even on a journey to mars. I mean, I don't have any better ideas, but given that the whole point is to give an idea of scale I wish they'd come up with something else. :)

How about you just imagine the ship is rotating on an axis for artificial gravity generation. Then, if you were looking out the window, you would see the starfield whizzing by. :-)

Edited for smiley.