APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Roz

Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Roz » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:12 pm

That was just lovely!

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Markus Schwarz » Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:01 am

Unfortunately, I cannot view the video from Germany :(

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by bystander » Sun Dec 27, 2015 3:51 pm

Markus Schwarz wrote:Unfortunately, I cannot view the video from Germany :(

Try this one on youtube. It's the same video.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
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Roadbum

Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Roadbum » Sun Dec 27, 2015 11:38 pm

The University of Maine has done something like this. The sun is represented as an arc in a three story stairwell in the Science building on the Presque Isle campus. The rest of the planets are strung out along US Highway One down to near Houlton. The scale and the planets are to scale. Most of them can be seen along the highway, though one has to know where to look and to pay attention.

Visual_Astronomer

Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Visual_Astronomer » Mon Dec 28, 2015 3:18 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Visual_Astronomer wrote:Precisely. GR provides a very accurate description of the behavior of matter, but it is a mistake to confuse reality with a mathematical model of it. I have no fear of philosophy!
Or perhaps, it is a mistake to believe there's a difference between the two.
A model must be different from the thing it represents, else it would be the thing itself, not a model of it. Max Tegmark thinks the universe is made of math, but I'm not so sure.

Newton had a good model, but it got replaced by Einstein. Relativity and quantum physics do a really good job describing particular narrow slices of reality, but they aren't unified, and they don't include all the dark matter and energy. Surely some day they will be swept aside by an even more precise, all-inclusive model of the world.

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 28, 2015 3:22 pm

Visual_Astronomer wrote:
Chris Peterson wrote:
Visual_Astronomer wrote:Precisely. GR provides a very accurate description of the behavior of matter, but it is a mistake to confuse reality with a mathematical model of it. I have no fear of philosophy!
Or perhaps, it is a mistake to believe there's a difference between the two.
A model must be different from the thing it represents, else it would be the thing itself, not a model of it.
My point was simply that if the model perfectly represents the behavior, then there is little meaning to what the behavior "really" is. All we need is the model. When discussing the Universe, "reality" isn't a useful concept, assuming it even has meaning at all.

We have few perfect models at this point, but that's a separate issue.
Chris

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by geckzilla » Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:37 pm

I thought models only approach perfection, never actually reaching it. What model would you say is perfect already, Chris?
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:42 pm

geckzilla wrote:I thought models only approach perfection, never actually reaching it. What model would you say is perfect already, Chris?
I don't know if any are (although some might be). But I don't know why a model can't perfectly represent reality. I don't see that it's something that can never be achieved.
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by neufer » Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:53 pm

geckzilla wrote:
I thought models only approach perfection, never actually reaching it.
What model would you say is perfect already...
  • 1) The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant.

    2) E=mc2

    3) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

    4) The four laws of thermodynamics.

    5) Maxwell's equations

    6) Image
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Mon Dec 28, 2015 7:31 pm

neufer wrote:
geckzilla wrote:
I thought models only approach perfection, never actually reaching it.
What model would you say is perfect already...
  • 1) The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant.

    2) E=mc2

    3) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

    4) The four laws of thermodynamics.

    5) Maxwell's equations

    6) Image
I like this one too though not quite the same type of equation.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
I am curious if the this the makers of the video considered inclination from the plane or even how difficult showing it would be.
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Markus Schwarz » Mon Dec 28, 2015 8:33 pm

bystander wrote:
Markus Schwarz wrote:Unfortunately, I cannot view the video from Germany :(
Try this one on youtube. It's the same video.

There is no technical problem but a legal issue, which is a lot more difficult to resolve :bang:

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 28, 2015 8:44 pm

Markus Schwarz wrote:
bystander wrote:
Markus Schwarz wrote:Unfortunately, I cannot view the video from Germany :(
Try this one on youtube. It's the same video.

There is no technical problem but a legal issue, which is a lot more difficult to resolve :bang:
Just use a proxy. These things are easily worked around.
Chris

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by geckzilla » Mon Dec 28, 2015 8:49 pm

Haha, it's just way too easy to make jokes of poor taste involving (fire)walls and overbearing copyright groups in Germany...
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

mwarri

Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by mwarri » Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:20 pm

There is also a scale model at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, with the Sun in front of the museum, and marker posts down the street toward the Washington Monument.

Question: With the Sun in the Black Rock Desert on the scale you constructed, about how far away is the nearest star? Denver? St. Louis? etc.

Thanks!

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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by neufer » Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:57 pm

mwarri wrote:
Question: With the Sun in the Black Rock Desert on the scale you constructed, about how far away is the nearest star? Denver? St. Louis? etc.
~47,000 kilometers or about 30% further than geostationary satellites.
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by ta152h0 » Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:43 pm

that is a lot of kilometers
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by Beyond » Tue Jan 19, 2016 2:41 am

Heck, that's even a lot of miles!
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by neufer » Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:26 am

ta152h0 wrote:
neufer wrote:
mwarri wrote:
Question: With the Sun in the Black Rock Desert on the scale you constructed, about how far away is the nearest star? Denver? St. Louis? etc.
~47,000 kilometers or about 30% further than geostationary satellites.
that is a lot of kilometers
And yet a banana slug could traverse that distance in ~600 years = ~150 life spans.

It would take humans ~30,000 years = ~400 life spans to get to Proxima Centauri.

"Interstellar travel" for banana slugs makes more sense, IMO.
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by ta152h0 » Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:44 am

lets see, one spaceship pulling an Airstream trailer for supplies, having babies on the way with all the claptrap required to raise such babies to be doctors, scientists, engineers going thru 150 lifespans being bombarded by intense radiation and quite possibly never to return info to Earthdwellers. I think having an ice cold on here is a better scenario .
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by MarkBour » Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:48 pm

Nice to hear about the permanent models constructed in Alaska and Maine. It would be fun to visit these and see them.
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Re: APOD: To Scale: The Solar System (2015 Dec 25)

Post by M100 » Wed Dec 12, 2018 4:45 am

This is a wonderful project that truly educates concerning the sheer size of space, however, I have to take issue with the statement about floating in nothing. Dark matter, gravitational fields, cosmic rays, supernovas, galaxies, the universe. Truly not nothing.

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