Things that are much smaller than you always thought

[j666]

Rockefeller Plaza. It’s not that big. It’s a lot smaller that Boston City Plaza.

Sequoias. They’re really big, but they just don’t feel as massive as they look in pictures.

@Little_Nemo

The Alamo we see today is just a single building that’s left from what was a larger complex back at the time of the battle.

What gets me about the Alamo is how you expect it to be out in the country. It’s actually right in the middle of downtown San Antonio, surrounded by office buildings that tower over it. Even back in 1836, it was a good-sized town.

I love that about the Alamo. I grew up back East, and I expect historical sites to be little pockets tucked into odd spaces in the city.

[D18]

@robby

And thinking more macroscopically, I would say the Mona Lisa.

When I first saw it, I thought, “That’s it?” Of course, the painting was also likely overwhelmed by the crowd surrounding it, the security (and bulletproof glass), and the fact that you are required to view it from a distance.

Probably the context, as you note. It’s in the typical range of portraits: the Mona Lisa is 77 cm by 53 cm. By way of comparison, this here self portrait of Rembrandt is a little taller, although it is wider - 80 cm by 67 cm. The Girl with the Pearl Earring (and most of Vermeer’s paintings) are much smaller. I’m curious - if someone would like to work it out: let’s say the barrier to view the Mona Lisa is 4 meters from the painting. How far would you have to be from the Girl with the Pearl Earring to have have it be the same apparent size?

[snfaulkner]

My paycheck

[StGermain]

@kunilou

Civil War battlefields. I’ve only been to a few, but they were smaller than the campus of the local elementary school. A couple of them were the about the size of a football field. It’s hard to believe they could even set up two lines with enough land in the middle to fight over.

In Murfreesboro, TN, is Stones River National Battlefield, a 570-acre park along the Stones River in Rutherford County, Tennessee, three miles northwest of Murfreesboro and twenty-eight miles southeast of Nashville, memorializes the Battle of Stones River.

StG

[Wesley_Clark]

Stalin was only 5’5". Which seeing how he controlled 1/6 of earth at his peak, is kind of interesting.

[Bookkeeper]

A B-29 bomber. Absolutely huge in WW2, but I saw one up close recently, and was surprised at how small it seemed compared to modern airliners. Surprisingly quiet, too - a ground crewman said that running the exhaust through the turbochargers acted like mufflers to deaden the noise.

[nearwildheaven]

@Hi_Neighbor

Jonathan Banks who plays Mike on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He always has a big menacing presence on screen, but then I saw him in an old episode of Dexter, and everyone was towering over him. I went to look up how tall he was, and was surprised to see he is only 5’9". I thought for sure he was 6’+.

But then again a lot of actors are shorter than they appear on screen, like Tom Cruise.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is also of average height. This was driven home when he made an appearance on SNL, and was in between the heights of the actors who played Hans & Franz, one of whom was Dana Carvey (who, BTW, had a cameo in that Stonehenge movie ).

[Randolph]

The Liberty Bell. I had always thought it was this giant, diving-bell-sized thing, that Quadimodo woulda been jumping up and down on a rope to ring. Nope - it’s more like something you would wiggle in your hand to announce that dinner is served. (Well, okay, maybe not quite that bad.) Quite disappointing in real life, at least to my inner 10-year-old.

[APB]

@Crotalus

Dealey Plaza, where the assassination of President Kennedy took place. I had seen it in countless photos and television news stories. When I first drove into it, I was shocked at how close together everything was. The distance from the 6th floor window to the car’s position, the distance between Zapruder and car, the proximity of the grassy knoll to everything else all surprised me.

I had the opposite reaction. The distances immediately around the site of the assassination were much as I had expected, mainly because everyone always says that they are surprised by how close everything is. But the Plaza itself seemed bigger. My sense of its overall size had been distorted by the fact that so often only the northern half gets photographed.

[Cartooniverse]

@romansperson

Stonehenge. It would fit in my yard with room to spare.

The obligatory Stonehenge bit from Spiñal Tap

[Lucas_Jackson]

@StGermain

In Murfreesboro, TN…

And speaking of Murfreesboro, TN:

John Mulaney Shares His Best Heckle Story

</hijack>

[PAjoe]

The Mercury space capsule. Not for the claustrophobic.

[Quimby]

@PAjoe

The Mercury space capsule. Not for the claustrophobic.

Similarly, I once took a tour on a submarine and it is TIGHT. It makes sense. In Space and on the ocean elbow room is a premium.

[Johnny_Ecks]

Alcatraz

In movies it looks like a big prison complex, and guys talk about having contacts in A-block and B-block, and the library and it seems like a maze of cells. When you visit, the whole prisoner area is about the size of a small warehouse, and A-block is about ten feet away from B- block, and the “Library” is basically a closet with books.

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

I was aboard a replica of “The Pinta”.

It seemed tiny to me, with very little room for a crew of 26.

Pinta (ship)

[Bin-Gay]

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park in Utah was much smaller than I expected. When seen in context to the landscape, it became obvious that it is appropriately named.

[DCnDC]

Hieronymus Bosch triptych paintings. Because of the amount of detail I always thought they were very large, like wall-sized, but I saw the Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony in Lisbon and while it was a big painting, it wasn’t nearly as large as I expected.

[ZonexandScout]

The moon in the night sky. It seems like it should be huge, especially when it’s near the horizon. But you can hold a pencil at arm’s length and pretty much cover it. (I’ve won bar bets by claiming that it can be covered by a penny at arm’s length. People seem genuinely shocked when they find it is much smaller than a penny.)

[thelurkinghorror]

@ZonexandScout

The moon in the night sky. It seems like it should be huge, especially when it’s near the horizon. But you can hold a pencil at arm’s length and pretty much cover it. (I’ve won bar bets by claiming that it can be covered by a penny at arm’s length. People seem genuinely shocked when they find it is much smaller than a penny.)

Moon illusion

[Shagnasty]

@Crotalus

Dealey Plaza, where the assassination of President Kennedy took place. I had seen it in countless photos and television news stories. When I first drove into it, I was shocked at how close together everything was. The distance from the 6th floor window to the car’s position, the distance between Zapruder and car, the proximity of the grassy knoll to everything else all surprised me.

I have seen The Mona Lisa and the small size surprised me but Dealey Plaza is the one that REALLY surprised me. If you go there, all of the conspiracy theories of the Kennedy assassination instantly fall apart. Oswald could have hit Kennedy with a slingshot. The “Grassy Knoll” is just a slightly raised area on the other side a not very notable street. All of the landmarks that people reference are right there and not far apart at all like two houses on the opposite side of a typical suburban street. There is no way for anyone to hide.