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Good morning I choose thoughts you never had previously. (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] 22 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Calling an asteroid a stone, while technically true, is akin to calling the planet it struck a rock-covered ball bearing.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    I mean, the planet is likely smoother than a lot of ball bearings

    The highest point and the lowest point aren't very far deviated. Less than 6 miles up and less than 6 miles down. Basically a little less than 0.001% deviation.

    Edit: After doing a bit of digging it looks like Earth would be comparable to a 1 inch grade 1000 ball bearing. Grade 1000 are not remotely close to the highest grade, in fact it's one of the lowest grades of ball bearings.

    mobile link, sorry

    God damn ball bearings get down to some crazy tolerances at the really high grades.

    I'm happy I dig some digging into it.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    New ball bearings are still likely significantly smoother than the earth. Old worn out ball bearings might be rougher.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    After doing a bit of digging it looks like Earth would be comparable to a 1 inch grade 1000 ball bearing.

    mobile link, sorry

    God damn ball bearings get down to some crazy high tolerances.

    I'm happy I dig some digging into it.

    Edit: Grade 1000 is a really low grade ball bearing, thought I should clarify that.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    So you’re saying the earth is a very smooth ball bearing. This despite being classified as an oblate spheroid.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm guessing smoothness doesn't consider the non-spherical shape of the planet, just the bumpiness of it. But I'm also some random on the Internet, so who knows

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think I’m missing what the smoothness of the planet has to do with it being basically an iron-nickel ball covered by a bit of rock, but being a meat popsicle, I tend to miss a lot of things.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    The difference in diameter between the pole and the equator is only about 26 miles.

    7926 miles vs 7900 miles

    So a difference of about 0.03%

    Yeah I'd say that's pretty spherical

    Edit: Rereading this it comes of a bit rougher than I intended. Basically what I'm saying is something can be spherical without being a perfect sphere, infact if to be a sphere (in common usage of the word) only applied to perfect examples of a sphere than nothing would be a sphere. Definitions are pretty wishy-washy a lot of the times, especially when it comes to describing the world as it is.

    Earth is an oblique spheroid, technically. But calling it a sphere is true enough to observers that I'd say it still counts.

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