h a l f b a k e r yMagical moments of mediocrity.
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The speed of light = 299792458... m/s
1 year = 365.256363051 days = 31558149.7676064... seconds
1 light year = 9460895288762851.4325312... meters
It's quite difficult to imagine such a number of meters, so the idea is to build a CUBE, the volume of which was the number of cubic milimeters,
equal to the number of meters in one light year. The size of a side of the CUBE should be:
211.50018192498589995693782730935... meters!
The CUBE could be nambed as "Light Year Cube". It's surface could be a little transparent and decorated with square milimeters drawn on it. The surface could be made from glass-like material, so that you could imagine how many of these cubic milimeters there really are!..
You could get up on the cube for a fee. But I think it would be much..much.. more useful for attracting tourists not only on the CUBE itself, but also to the city where the CUBE would be built.
Lightyear CUBE
http://www.brickshe.../buzz-lightyear.jpg
nothing to do with this, then? [swamilad, Nov 16 2004]
Lightyear cubed.
http://www.geocitie...cubic-lightyear.htm
Just a little elbow room. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 17 2004]
[link]
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What do you mean by "little buidle", [Tabs]? Yea, a little one! ;-) |
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Well, even if you make it smaller, it's still 650 feet on a side, which is longer than most city blocks. It'd have to be either on the outskirts of town, or in a rehabbing district. |
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(+) for the idea, though. I'd pay 5 bucks to go up in one, just to hear people try to comprehend the sheer length of a light year. |
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:-) Yea, cities nowadays are packed with buildings. What city do you live in? ... One would probably need to free up a part of the city. After the cube is built, a part of the CUBE could serve as living apartments though... |
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How much would you pay for flying around the CUBE with a helicopter? |
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You mean, 7-15 buildlings (would have to be removed from the area), or is this the name (or a hint about) of your city ? |
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I mean, I'd pay seven dollars and fifty cents to ride in a helicopter around the cube. I'm a cheapskate. |
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I live in St. Louis, Missouri, where the city blocks are all around 528 feet long from the centers of the cross streets, as per the city planners' desire to have 10 blocks equate to a mile. |
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Oh! I see, [shapu].
That's interesting. I have a relative living in St. Louis! ;-)... There is a beautiful arc in that city, right? .. It would be ruining the structure of the city building such a CUBE. |
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Where are you going to put it when you have to pack your toys up and go to bed?. |
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Too many people already think that a light year is a unit of TIME. Now, they can get more confused and think it's a unit of VOLUME. .... |
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Why not just use a meter stick with "One light year. Scale: 9,461,000,000,000,000:1" written on it? That should clear things up. |
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// build a CUBE, the volume of which was the number of cubic milimeters, equal to the number of meters in one light year // |
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Seems to be an arbitrary and therefore meaningless comparison. Don't see the point. |
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Maybe if this was instead a cube of gold with a market value of $211.50. Now that would be something. |
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//Too many people already think that a light year is a unit of TIME// Maybe to clear things up, the light kilometer should be introduced, the time it takes light to travel one kilometer. |
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Does that include the leap second? |
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How bout the "lightyearplex" -- defined as the distance that light can travel in one light year. |
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If you ran a really long fiber-optic through the cube, so that it passed through each cubic millimeter... it would take EIGHT FRICKEN HOURS for light to travel through the fiber!
(((211*1000)^3) /1000/300000000) / (60*60). |
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If you pulse it it might look good, though, chaps! |
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Well, I'm not surprised it would take so long, myself...after all, it would be a 9.46*10^10 km trip. That's a long way. |
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I guess....I'm not really familiar with all of those fancy SI-type units. What is that? Two miles? Three? |
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Sorry to be a calculation killjoy but
surely if each m of a lightyear are being
represented by a mm then it will take
light 1/1000 of a year to go through
each mm^3! |
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The volume to distance conversion is arbitrary. On the other hand, if one were to fill a (183meters)^3 cube with 1-mil fiber, the total length of the fiber would be about a light year. |
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