A Perfect Model of the Earth, Scaled Down

Factual Questions
21

I remember hearing that if the Earth was the size of a billiard ball, it would be smoother than any sphere of that size that Man could make. Now, this was 40 years ago, and technology has changed, so it might not be true any longer, but it gives some idea about how nearly perfectly smooth the Earth is.

22

Probably not true any longer. For a while the record was held by the spherical gyroscopes of Gravity Probe B, a NASA satellite; if those spheres were scaled up to the size of the Earth, the highest mountains would tower all of 12 feet over the deepest ocean trenches. I believe that the scientists working on the current effort to standardize the kilogram beat that record a few years back, though.

23

Extremely well played, my good man.

24

With all the complex math, I think we could use a less complex model without introducing a significant error. How about we consider a spherical Earth?

25

I can’t comment on your Mt Everest request, but I did read an interesting fact that relates to this topic (sort of)

If you scaled a snooker/pool ball up to the size of the Earth, the surface would have peaks many times higher than Everest, and troughs many times lower than the deepest Oceanic trench. Although a pool ball feels smooth, the tiny imperfections would be greatly magnified if scaled up to Earth size.

Actually, that sort of does answer your question, if the Earth was scaled down it would be even smoother than a normal pool ball, so I guess you wouldn’t be able to feel Everest.

26

If the earth were a sphere with a diameter of a distance equal to mt everest’ height, mt everest would be about 6m tall.

So, if the tallest mountain in the world had a proportional outcropping, it would be around twenty feet.

If an asteroid 1km in diameter had a mt everest, it would be around .7m tall. About two feet.

27

Also, if earth had a proportional olympus mons, it would be over 40 kilometers tall! It would be over 600 miles wide at its base!

28

Here’s an image of the Earth and a small drop of water, of course representing how much water we have. First time I saw one like this, several years ago, it was quite shocking (it’s one thing to hear the numbers, and quite another to see the actual amount).