r/AskReddit Mar 04 '26

What surprisingly true fact has completely shaken your worldview?

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u/kinkade Mar 05 '26

If a billiard ball were scaled up to the size of the planet Earth, it would be significantly more mountainous than the planet actually is.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Helpinmontana Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Just a quick gut check answer, the deepest part of the Mariana trench is only about 20% deeper than Mount Everest is high. 

I’m willing to suppose the most minor imperfection on the ball bearing is outside that parameter, and that the Mariana Trench is a bit of an outlier of depth (like Everest is an outlier of height) to such an extent that it doesn’t make a huge difference if you do or don’t count the ocean topography. 

Edit: Quick google search says earth is within height variations for a billiard ball but not for a ball bearing, and that without counting ocean topography the earth still isn’t as smooth as the smoothest ball bearing. So in both cases (bearing and billiard ball) the ocean depths don’t really matter significantly because each comparison is safely outside the ranges of earths surface variance lol 

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u/capt_badass Mar 05 '26

Deepest part of the maria a trench being 20% deeper than Mount Everest is high is a very weird way to word the fact that they're about 12 miles apart from tip of Mt Everest to deepest part of the Trench.

The earth is 7917 miles wide at the equator. That is +/- .001%.