# Ask Jeeves vs. Uncle Cecil
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [August 10, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824 "2000-08-10T13:26:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mikehardware](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikehardware)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/1 "2000-08-10T13:26:42Z")
My wonderful wife bought me a copy of “Just Curious, Jeeves” for my birthday (just to help me last until a new Straight Dope book is published, of course.) There it was on page 39:
> [@](#):
>
> Is it true that the Great Wall of China is the only human-made thing visible from the moon?
>
> “Cecil Adams” (Ed Gotti), author of the Straight Dope columns and books, claims that everyone believes this “wall seen from the moon” myth because it was reported in Trivial Pursuit once. But it was presented as fact before Sputnik even went into space. No, the Great Wall cannot be seen from the moon, and neither can any other object constructed by humans.
To keep things in perspective, on page 381, it’s discovered that Bruce Lee “played superhero Green Lantern’s sidekick Kato”.
OK, Teeming Millions, what actions should be taken?
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### Author:  [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/2 "2000-08-10T13:29:42Z")
Duh. We take the smug bastard down. He’s just a servant, afterall.
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### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/3 "2000-08-10T14:00:54Z")
-
> [@](#):
>
> Cecil Adams (Ed Gotti)
-
Geez, no wonder Cecil’s true identity is a secret! He’s a member of the Mafia! :D:D
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### Author:  [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/4 "2000-08-10T14:11:52Z")
Jeeves does not remember his station. In one brief passage he gets one fact dead wrong (“Gotti”), assumes another “fact” without evidence (Unca Cece doesn’t exist), and misinterprets yet another fact (Cece didn’t say Trivial Pursuit invented the UL, merely popularized it.
Sounds like a good time for an old-fashioned book-burning!
Sua
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### Author:  [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/5 "2000-08-10T17:51:11Z")
I seem to recall hearing that Kansai Intl Airport in Japan was visible from space or something like that, but I may be wrong.
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### Author:  [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/6 "2000-08-10T18:01:24Z")
human stuff is visible from orbit, but not from the moon
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### Author:  [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/7 "2000-08-10T18:02:44Z")
er…the space shuttle’s orbit, I should say
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/8 "2000-08-10T19:16:35Z")
Depends on what you mean by “human stuff”… I believe that even from the Moon, you can see spots of light from cities, if it’s clear and night there.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/9 "2000-08-10T21:11:00Z")
Please allow me to fire the next salvo in the attack on Jeeves:
[This](http://www.satirewire.com/features/satire-jeevesinterview.html) has been making the email rounds lately.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/10 "2000-08-10T22:36:52Z")
I suspect that **Cecil** ’s warriors in Comments on Cecil’s Columns will know precisely what to do about this turn of events. I’ll move the thread up there to make sure they see it.
Go git 'em, folks!
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/11 "2000-08-11T12:46:51Z")
What **Phobos** said. The moon is another 23,000 miles (yes? no? oh no MATH) further than Earth orbit, so you can see the Great Wall from orbit but not from the moon.
But the nit that the Jeeves book is picking seems to be that “Cecil says that people started saying that you could see the Great Wall from the moon because of a Trivial Pursuit question, when in actual fact people started saying it even before Sputnik.”
So? Well? Which is it? When did people start saying you could see the Great Wall from the moon?
(WAS that Bruce Lee? I thought it was somebody else.)
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### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/12 "2000-08-11T13:25:37Z")
\*\*\*Duck Duck Goose:\*\*What Phobos said. The moon is another 23,000 miles (yes? no? oh no MATH) further than Earth orbit, so you can see the Great Wall from orbit but not from the moon. \*
Only 23,000 miles out! Yikes! Try about 240,000 miles (384,000 kilograms).
23,000 miles is geosynchronous orbit. The moon would orbit once a day and stay over the same spot and take up 5[sup]o[/sup] of the sky.
[vB italics tag fixed ‘cuz it was buggin’ me - UncleBeer]
[Edited by UncleBeer on 08-11-2000 at 10:14 AM]
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### Author:  [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/13 "2000-08-11T14:52:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AWB \*
> **Only 23,000 miles out! Yikes! Try about 240,000 miles (384,000 kilograms).**
That’s heavy, man.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/14 "2000-08-11T15:12:40Z")
Just for the hell of it, here’s [Cecil’s](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_092.html) original column on the Great Wall question.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/15 "2000-08-11T15:56:13Z")
Here’s an intriguing comment which would indicate the origin of the legend could go back a long way-"There are documents dating from 1909 and 1923 that claim
it would be visible from the Moon.
"
That was from [this](http://x22.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=514596516)
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### Author:  [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/16 "2000-08-11T16:16:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \*
> \*\*Just for the hell of it, here’s [Cecil’s](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_092.html) original column on the Great Wall question. \*\*
Well, it’s clear that Cecil _did not_ claim “that everyone believes this “wall seen from the moon” myth because it was reported in Trivial Pursuit once.”
Clearly, the column mentions that Trivial Pursuit is wrong, though, that the Great Wall is the only human object that can be seen from space. “Space,” of course, could be low earth orbit, which is a thousand times closer than the moon. That’s like the difference between looking at things at arm length, and a half mile away.
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### Author:  [@mikehardware](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikehardware)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2000, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/17 "2000-08-11T16:46:53Z")
For the benefit of folks who have never seen the show, Bruce Lee played Kato, the sidekick to the Green Hornet (not Green Lantern).
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/18 "2000-08-12T22:35:31Z")
To further my reference concerning WHEN people first started referring to the Great Wall as visible from the moon, I sent a letter to Brian Lawrence, the author of that deja article I posted. He nicely returned an answer very quickly. Here it is.
> [@](#):
>
> “The Great Wall of China”, by William Edgar Geil, published by
> Sturgis & Walton, New York, 1909, p.17
>
> The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. XLIII, No. 2 - February
> 1923, p.113, article “A Thousand Miles Along the Great Wall of
> China” by Adam Warwick
>
> HTH,
>
> Brian
god bless the internet.
And I still think someone needs to beat the servants.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2000, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/19 "2000-08-14T22:08:36Z")
Hmmm, some pondering is in order. Why would someone think the Great Wall might be visible from the Moon, prior to anyone ever going there? Perhaps it has to do with the length of the wall, and the thought that it would have enough angular resolution to be visible because of it’s length. Of course that neglects width, the other required dimension.
Any takers?
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2000, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-jeeves-vs-uncle-cecil/28824/20 "2000-08-15T23:41:54Z")
My copy of the 1903 edition of “The World’s Book of Knowledge and Universal Educator” has some speculation about what the Earth looked like from the moon, but doesn’t say anything about being able to see human-made objects. It does say that the Earth would be about 14 times brighter than the moon. It also included a drawing – [The Earth as seen from the Moon](http://www.ipass.net/~whitetho/earth.jpg) – which looks pretty accurate, although they left off the Earth’s clouds. This drawing only shows the vague outline of the Earth’s oceans and continents, so I doubt this particular author thought the Great Wall would be visible.
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