# Greater distance: around the world 17,000 times or to Jupiter and back? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 16, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390 "2010-08-16T04:26:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/1 "2010-08-16T04:26:23Z")
I was having a bit of a debate with my 7 year old earlier tonight who said he loves me around the world 17,000 times which he believes is very clearly more than I love him (to Jupiter and back). This being the Straight Dope, I figured somebody here must know how to figure out which is farther. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/2 "2010-08-16T04:37:17Z")
> [@Silver\_Fire](#): > > I was having a bit of a debate with my 7 year old earlier tonight who said he loves me around the world 17,000 times which he believes is very clearly more than I love him (to Jupiter and back). > > This being the Straight Dope, I figured somebody here must know how to figure out which is farther. IANAA, but: 17000 times around the earth is about 423 million miles. From earth to Jupiter and back varies depending where they are in their respective orbits, but Jupiter is 5.2 AU from the sun, and earth is 1 AU, so I suppose the closest they could be is about 4.2 AU, or 390 million miles, for a round trip of 780 million miles. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/3 "2010-08-16T04:38:19Z")
Circumference of Earth - 40000km x 17000 = 680 million km Minimum distance to Jupiter (that is, Jupiter at perihelion and Earth directly between it and the Sun) - 590 million km x 2 = 1180 million km Of course, usually Jupiter is further away than that, up to a maximum of around 950 million km. Your son doesn’t love you as much as you love him. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/4 "2010-08-16T04:43:53Z")
Heh. Thanks to you both. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/5 "2010-08-16T04:48:35Z")
Interesting, though, that the two numbers are as close as they are. If **Silver Fire** loved her son just out as far as Jupiter, one-way, then which one loved the other more would vary over the course of a year. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/6 "2010-08-16T04:56:45Z")
If you assume that Jupiter is about 5.2 AU away on average then a round trip would be 1,560,000,000 Km. Your loves would be equal if he loved you exactly 39,000 times around the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/7 "2010-08-16T05:03:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Interesting, though, that the two numbers are as close as they are. If **Silver Fire** loved her son just out as far as Jupiter, one-way, then which one loved the other more would vary over the course of a year. Actually, I added the “… and back” as an after-thought because just going out there didn’t seem far enough for a sure win and he was already arguing with me at that point because the first thing I said was that I love him all the way to the next county “but walking, not driving, so it _feels_ farther.” 😃 dtilque, I’ll let him know that and see if he’ll agree to love me that much. He’ll probably up it to 40,000 times just to get the edge. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/8 "2010-08-16T17:07:04Z")
Currently, by the way, Jupiter is 4.131 AU away, which is fifteen and a half thousand times around the Earth. Is it possible that, after you told him how much you loved him, he looked it up, rounded up, and added an extra thousand times around for good measure? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/9 "2010-08-16T17:15:48Z")
Let him think he loves you more; that way you can threaten to leave him if he doesn’t behave. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/10 "2010-08-16T17:33:59Z")
And then when he’s a little older, you can terrify him by threatening to never leave him. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/11 "2010-08-16T17:39:52Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Your son doesn’t love you as much as you love him. Or alternatively, that his love for you exceeds his current knowledge of planetary astronomy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/12 "2010-08-16T17:48:20Z")
I like that answer. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/13 "2010-08-16T18:19:10Z")
Oh yeah? Well when I was 7, I loved my mom all the trees in the world. So who loved their mom more, me or **Silver Fire** ’s kid? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/14 "2010-08-16T18:23:55Z")
Clearly **Silver Fire** ’s kid, because he’s not trying to use up the Earth’s trees. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/15 "2010-08-16T18:35:24Z")
Tell him you love him [to a z of 10 and back](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Extragalactic_observations). That’s the most distant galaxy we’ve found so far. I know, I know, it’s my fault if all of this gets him interested in astronomy, and he decides to become an astronomer instead of doing something lucrative… ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/16 "2010-08-16T20:40:07Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Tell him you love him [to a z of 10 and back](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Extragalactic_observations). That’s the most distant galaxy we’ve found so far. > > I know, I know, it’s my fault if all of this gets him interested in astronomy, and he decides to become an astronomer instead of doing something lucrative… No, no, no. Stick to pure mathematics, that gives you far more impressive results. Tell him you love him as much as Graham’s number: > **[Graham's number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham's_number)** > > Graham's number is an immense number that arose as an upper bound on the answer of a problem in the mathematical field of Ramsey theory. It is much larger than many other large numbers such as Skewes's number and Moser's number, both of which are in turn much larger than a googolplex. As with these, it is so large that the observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume, possibly the smalles... > [@](#): > > This is Graham’s number. It is so large that if all the matter in the > universe were turned into paper, and you had a pen that wrote at text > size of 6.6x10^-34 metres (you can’t get smaller than that), it still > would not be enough to write down the number. G64 is used as an upper > bound to a question in Ramsey Theory. (The actual answer is believed > to be 6.) ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/17 "2010-08-16T23:01:12Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Your loves would be equal if he loved you exactly 39,000 times around the Earth. Me: “You have to love me 39,000 times around the world to equal love to Jupiter and back.” Him: “Oh.” Me: “…” Him: “What if I just love you _infinity_ around the world?” Hey, works for me. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/18 "2010-08-17T17:26:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Currently, by the way, Jupiter is 4.131 AU away… … and just one month ago, it was 4.50 AU away. Did your son do something to make you love him less? His love for you has not changed. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/19 "2010-08-17T17:28:20Z")
Well, he _is_ a seven year old… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390/20 "2010-08-17T17:32:52Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > This is Graham’s number. It is so large that if all the matter in the > > universe were turned into paper, and you had a pen that wrote at text > > size of 6.6x10^-34 metres (you can’t get smaller than that), it still > > would not be enough to write down the number. G64 is used as an upper > > bound to a question in Ramsey Theory. (The actual answer is believed > > to be 6.) Wait, if all the matter in the universe is turned into paper then where did you (I’m assuming you’ve evolved into an energy based being) get a pen? You stole my pen, didn’t you? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greater-distance-around-the-world-17-000-times-or-to-jupiter-and-back/550390.md?page=2)