# AOL: spanning (or encircling) the globe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207 "2006-07-19T18:31:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Xenalyte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Xenalyte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xenalyte)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/1 "2006-07-19T18:31:20Z")
An online buddy of mine posed an intriguing question . . . **"If all the free discs and CDs that AOL has distributed were stacked end-to-end, I wonder how many times it would circle the globe?"** I found it inspiring and profound, and therefore I bring it here for discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/2 "2006-07-19T18:48:12Z")
Earth’s diameter is 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers). A CD has a diameter of 12 cm. It’d take 106,300,159 AOL CD’s to circle the globe. If you stacked all those 1.2 mm thick discs on top of each other, you’d have a pile 127.5 km tall. At 700 megabytes a pop, those same discs could hold a total of 70,963 terabytes of _useful_ data. ---
**Author:** ![Xenalyte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Xenalyte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xenalyte)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/3 "2006-07-19T19:48:59Z")
So I guess the missing piece of information is whether AOL has in fact sent out at least 106 million CDs. I can vouch for receiving at least 30,000, but some of mine might have gotten lost in the mail when I moved. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/4 "2006-07-19T19:52:40Z")
> [@Xenalyte](#): > > So I guess the missing piece of information is whether AOL has in fact sent out at least 106 million CDs. That’s almost certainly true. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/5 "2006-07-19T20:11:13Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > That’s almost certainly true. Yup, it certainly _is_ the missing piece of information. 😉 [From Wikipedia:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL) > [@](#): > > AOL was able to rapidly bolster its growth by mailing out sign-up diskettes and CD-ROMs containing free trials to hundreds of millions of households. Once offering only a few hours of free service, the discs now include up to a month’s worth of free subscription time. [AOL disc collecting:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_disk_collecting) > [@](#): > > While there are no official figures released by AOL Time Warner, it is estimated there are over 1000 disk-designs in existence and over a billion disks have been produced in total. That’s enough to circle the globe 10 times, but not enough to reach the moon. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/6 "2006-07-19T20:14:59Z")
Could we reah the moon if they were edge-to-edge, not stacked? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/7 "2006-07-19T20:34:39Z")
> [@Shoshana](#): > > Could we reach the moon if they were edge-to-edge, not stacked? Sorry, that’s what I meant. Also, I made a math error. Earth’s circumference is 40,075.16 kilometers, that’s 4007516000 cm. Divide by 12, and it’d take 333,959,667 CD’s to circle the globe. I will now step away from the calculator. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/8 "2006-07-19T20:40:24Z")
And to think, nearly every damn one of them has ended up in a landfill somwheres. ---
**Author:** ![Merhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Merhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/9 "2006-07-20T03:27:43Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > And to think, nearly every damn one of them has ended up in a landfill somwheres. Landfill? Phsaw… COASTERS! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/10 "2006-07-20T03:47:31Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > And to think, nearly every damn one of them has ended up in a landfill somwheres. Nonsense, they’re being used to build really shiny roads circling the world. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aol-spanning-or-encircling-the-globe/365207/11 "2006-07-20T04:08:59Z")
By AOL are we just talking about America OnLine, or are we also including its spinoff child companies including AOL (Australia OnLine) and those in other countries?