Has it ever occured to anyone else how fascinating it is that the sun and the moon appear to be the same size from the one vantange point in space that happens to be occupied by the one known creature capable of noticing?
In a solar eclipse, the moon can completely and perfectly cover the sun. When it does, we enjoy it, but wouldn’t a more likey scenario be that they appeared to be of different sizes?
Maybe it’s that scene with Luke Skywalker staring at two – what, moons? Planets? – in the first Star Wars film that got me thinking about this.
Two lights, one for night, one for day, and for human beings, they appear to be equally sized (though in fact greatly different, with one borrowing light from the other).
Imagine you are standing on a large, completely flat desert, which streches as far as the eye can see.
On it are two parallel railroad tracks, set several kilometers/miles apart, but eventually appearing to converge near the horizon.
On the left track is a big cube on wheels. The cube is as big as a two-story house.
On the right track is an amazingly humongous cube, as big on all sides as the Matterhorn, also on wheels.
If both cubes could be pushed with great force, and both stopped at a random distance, what are the odds that from your point of view (somewhere between the two tracks) the two cubes would appear, in the distance, to be the same size?
And if randomly pushed and they did appear equal, how many of you would you shrug and say, “…Coincidence.” – ?
P.S. You can sidetrack this by saying, "Yes, but sometimes the eclipse shows them at apparently different sizes, making a ring of light or even a “diamond ring” effect. This is of course true, but it misses the point of the question: What are the odds that they randomly appear so similar in size?
