# Earth orbit off 1mm-earth toast link **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 7, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239 "2012-11-07T16:41:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/41 "2012-11-09T13:28:31Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > (Supercomputer simulations suggest there is about a 1% chance Mercury’s orbit will become unstable within the next billion years. This could lead to it being ejected from the solar system, or it could collide with Venus or Earth. This would be bad.) I agree. Mercury is very poisonous. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/42 "2012-11-09T13:32:24Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I think you may be talking about the [Joshua missing day that NASA found notion.](http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2010/08/24/joshua-missing-day) > Very popular back in the 80s, but now that Answers in Genesis is all scientific, even they debunk it. > > One wonders if believers persuaded by this sort of thing issue retractions on their belief upon subsequently learning the item was bogus… Typically, there is always a fresh set of things of which they become persuaded, as the older ones go stale (AIG is in fact a good demonstration of this - debunking the things it used to promote, and promoting something else instead - the ‘arguments we no longer use’ feature is, for them, like the job of painting the Forth Bridge. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/43 "2012-11-09T13:33:24Z")
I’ve often heard the claim that if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same as they are now. It really makes you think. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/44 "2012-11-09T14:02:50Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > I’ve often heard the claim that if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same as they are now. It really makes you think. Yeah, and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, neither. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/45 "2012-11-09T16:22:25Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > I’ve often heard the claim that if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same as they are now. It really makes you think. It’s also true that things that happened, happened exactly when they happened and not before. Imagine having to wait for that. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/46 "2012-11-09T16:40:23Z")
> [@virtually\_yours](#): > > what’s wrong with a _perfect rectangle_ it;s the shape I am talking about not the size. A rectangle is a geometric concept, a Platonic ideal. A shape is either a rectangle or it’s not. There are no “imperfect rectangles.” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/47 "2012-11-09T17:07:48Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > A rectangle is a geometric concept, a Platonic ideal. A shape is either a rectangle or it’s not. There are no “imperfect rectangles.” I agree. There is perhaps some small utility for the concept ‘very nearly rectangular’, but a perfect rectangle is just a rectangle. And in engineering terms, nothing is perfect - instead, there is a specified tolerance of imperfection. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/48 "2012-11-09T17:39:39Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > A rectangle is a geometric concept, a Platonic ideal. A shape is either a rectangle or it’s not. There are no “imperfect rectangles.” “Imperfect” rectangles [do exist as a mathematical concept](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PerfectRectangle.html), but this doesn’t have anything to do with their size or width-length (a perfect rectangle can be made of squares of different sizes). Of course, you could also call a square a perfect rectangle, one which has sides of equal length. Also, as for the Earth’s orbit being off by a millimeter causing havoc, I wonder how much human activity has affected the orbit already, with no dire effects. [Here](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/news/dams-for-water-supply-are-altering-earth-s-orbit-expert-says.html) is an old (1996) NY Times article on dams speeding up the rotation of the Earth by 200 nanoseconds per day (which is to say, 1 second in 13,700 years). I’m pretty sure though that even if the Earth’s orbit changed by thousands of kilometers (or the length of day changed by seconds or even minutes) it wouldn’t have any noticeable effect. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/49 "2012-11-09T23:02:29Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > Of course, you could also call a square a perfect rectangle, one which has sides of equal length. I’ve never heard of that usage - is it common? - a square is a _regular_ rectangle. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239/50 "2012-11-10T10:47:07Z")
A perfect rectangle is made of pie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earth-orbit-off-1mm-earth-toast-link/640239.md?page=2)