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If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

joshworth.com

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Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#161

Post by Wohui »

mattquiros wrote: post #132

Anybody else get the feeling that we're probably stuck and will all die here on Earth? While scrolling through all that empty space, I was thinking about interstellar travel. I imagine it'll eventually be as easy and commonplace as we see in sci-fi, but I'm having a moment of doubt we'll ever get there, or if there's any point out-living the home planet.

I've always felt that way, thanks to the voyagers (37 years and the two little unmanned projectiles have managed to move 16 light hours). My dad always tried to tell me we're just waiting for the next scientific breakthrough. Either way, I think we desperately need to take care of earth; I can't think of an analogy but the earlier we move to take care of earth, the greater the extension to the time we have.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#162

Post by com2kid »

kps wrote: post #128
Renaud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is at least one reason for me that metric is vastly superior as a way to describe the world than the UK or US version of Imperial: the relationship between mass, volume and length is trivially easy to understand. A small cube of 1cm represents 1cm³, which is also 1mL which is also 1g of water. So a cube just 10cm across contains 1000cm³, or exactly 1 Litre and weighs exactly 1kg (of water). It's easy to grasps…

> the relationship between mass, volume and length is trivially easy to understand. Imperial units also have a simple relationship between mass and volume. In the US, a pint's a pound the world around , and in the world around the US, a pint of water is a pound and a quarter , and in some of those places that rhymes. (One fluid ounce — either kind — of water weights approximately one ounce.)

> In the US, a pint's a pound the world around

Having been born and raised in the US, I have never heard this before.

Presumably you are referring to a pint of water?

(Then again we never learned pints anyway, so meh)

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#163

Post by brc »

cal2 wrote: post #59
opminion wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Correct, and not knowing anything about the author I would venture that the reason is that he uses imperial in his everyday life, and thus it has been a concession to the wider world to do this in metric, for which I am grateful :-) Citation for "lowercase m for meters": http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec06.html

I'm American, so I use imperial units in my everyday life. I'm also a (bio)chemist, so I do use metric units about as often as I do imperial units. While I might be slightly biased ("M" is molarity gosh dangit), I don't think I would confuse "M" for "meters (m)" simply because I use imperial units in my everyday life. I bring this up simply because I've seen a few comments over the past few days to the tone of "imper…

The sole advantages of imperial units over metric units is that they are easier and faster to say.

50 miles is a ton less syllables than 50 'kilometers' an inch is much easier to say than '2 centimetres'

What would immensely improve the metric system would be recognised, single-syllable slang words for every measurement unit. A lot of native-metric-english speakers try, they say 'mil' for millilitres, they say 'kays' for kilometres, but you're still left with either awkward decimal points or excessive syllables.

I am 'one point eight three metres' tall, or 'one hundred and eighty three centimetres'. Or I am 'six feet'. Guess which gets used most?

The curse of the metric is the endless tongue-twisters.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#164

Post by ColinWright »

Shorel wrote: post #56
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #2

Are you kidding me? Sideways scroll with no way to use my scroll wheel? It's choppy and unreadable scrolling using the scrollbar, and using the right arrow is just too slow.

My scroll wheel has sideway tilt. However I just used the navigation icons on the top.

There are no navigation icons showing for me: FireFox 11.0

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#165

Post by ultrafez »

kenrikm wrote: post #18
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #2

Are you kidding me? Sideways scroll with no way to use my scroll wheel? It's choppy and unreadable scrolling using the scrollbar, and using the right arrow is just too slow.

I think it was designed for a Macbook's excellent trackpad. That said, I can see how it would be really difficult to scroll without one.

Designing for one thing that's really good in a world of things that are average, isn't the best strategy. Reminds me of "Designed for IE6" and look where that got us.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#166

Post by exDM69 »

krilnon wrote: post #91
opminion wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Correct, and not knowing anything about the author I would venture that the reason is that he uses imperial in his everyday life, and thus it has been a concession to the wider world to do this in metric, for which I am grateful :-) Citation for "lowercase m for meters": http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec06.html

Looks like the author changed it to 'km'.

The units in the intro screen are still kM, though.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#167

Post by exDM69 »

cal2 wrote: post #59
opminion wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Correct, and not knowing anything about the author I would venture that the reason is that he uses imperial in his everyday life, and thus it has been a concession to the wider world to do this in metric, for which I am grateful :-) Citation for "lowercase m for meters": http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec06.html

I'm American, so I use imperial units in my everyday life. I'm also a (bio)chemist, so I do use metric units about as often as I do imperial units. While I might be slightly biased ("M" is molarity gosh dangit), I don't think I would confuse "M" for "meters (m)" simply because I use imperial units in my everyday life. I bring this up simply because I've seen a few comments over the past few days to the tone of "imper…

Since we're talking about astronomy, both imperial and metric units are "wrong" and domain specific units should be used instead.

Unit of length should be astronomical units (abbrev. au, formerly AU), the mean distance between earth and the sun. If talking about distances in stellar scale, it should be parsec ("parallax second"), the distance from which an 1 au object can be seen at 1 arc second apparent size (and sin x = x is assumed because x is small).

Unit of mass is usually solar masses. In some special cases earth masses or jupiter masses.

Unit of density is either number of atoms in m^3 or other big volume when talking about interstellar medium or kg/m^3 when talking about planets or stars.

Unit of time is usually measured in years.

When you use solar masses, years and astronomical units, Kepler's 3rd law is reduced to: (m1+m2)period^2 = semi-major-axis^3 and the gravitational constant G = 4 * pi^2 (and thus it's cancelled out from G(m1+m2) * P^2 = 4 * pi^2 * a^3).

I definitely would have liked to see the distance in astronomical units and a verbal description of the distance ie. (5 million kilometers, not 5000000 km). Humans are really bad at understanding big numbers, any means of helping to understand that would be useful.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#168

Post by ZoFreX »

zrail wrote: post #33

As I was scrolling through I started to notice a really nice, subtle star background pattern that wasn't moving. I thought that was a really nice touch. And then I touched my monitor and, turns out, it was just dust. There's a metaphor there but I have no idea what it is.

All of that dust was stars, once :)

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#169

Post by adav »

arrrg wrote: post #57

There is a 1:1 billion scale planet path along the Rhine in Bonn. It makes for a nice Sunday walk (six kilometers from the Sun to Pluto), traversing pretty much the entire city. It seems many other places in central Europe have similar scale models of the solar system, though I’m not sure how common those are in North America.

There's also one of these solar system walks just outside York, UK, if anyone's interested.

Re: If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel

#170

Post by rquantz »

kps wrote: post #128
Renaud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is at least one reason for me that metric is vastly superior as a way to describe the world than the UK or US version of Imperial: the relationship between mass, volume and length is trivially easy to understand. A small cube of 1cm represents 1cm³, which is also 1mL which is also 1g of water. So a cube just 10cm across contains 1000cm³, or exactly 1 Litre and weighs exactly 1kg (of water). It's easy to grasps…

> the relationship between mass, volume and length is trivially easy to understand. Imperial units also have a simple relationship between mass and volume. In the US, a pint's a pound the world around , and in the world around the US, a pint of water is a pound and a quarter , and in some of those places that rhymes. (One fluid ounce — either kind — of water weights approximately one ounce.)

a pint's a pound the world around

I always wondered if butter was the basis for standard units. There's something rather wonderful about that idea to me.

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