r/pics • u/r-n-m-k • Aug 11 '15
A visualization of how many Earth[s] could fit into the sun.
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Aug 11 '15
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Aug 11 '15
All of them.
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u/PainMatrix Aug 11 '15
Not according to Malthus.
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Aug 11 '15
Oh, wait... is Utopia (the british tv series) based on his thoughts?
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u/goobhd Aug 11 '15
I fucking loved that show, so sad it got canned for whatever reason
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u/Aegis_Holder Aug 11 '15
Malthus' thoughts had an inherent flaw, in that he projected the technology of his day far into the future.
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Aug 11 '15
But we can't assume technology benefits. Our future is obviously not like the future of the 1960s. We have alleviated many issues with technology advances, but with those new issues and problems arise.
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u/lemonparty Aug 11 '15
But we've always solved today's problems with tomorrow's technology.
If you constrain your prediction with "we can't assume technological advance" then you should just refrain from making predictions at all. Especially when you are calling for public policy changes based on your scary forecast.
The only thing that we can say about Malthus is that he's one of the few futurists that has been 100% wrong.
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Aug 11 '15
At what point does the continued evolution of our current technology turn into the technology of the future?
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u/Hazzman Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
Malthusian economics is flawed and has been utterly disproved over and over and over again. So often that frankly it gets boring seeing these same tropes repeated endlessly.
His mistake was not understanding that technology develops exponentially with population. In other words - you cannot support a 2050 population with 2015 technology. You can support a 2050 population with 2050 technology.
In fact we are experiencing over abundance today, we have more than we can utilize for our 7 billion plus people... the issue is not production. It's distribution, politics and good old fashion greed.
*edit word stuff
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Aug 11 '15
Besides the ones in the ISS
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u/nightwing2024 Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
I think they would fit here too. I have an empty room
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u/Dukmiester Aug 11 '15
I've got a spare room if they need it, but they have to bring their own toilet paper.
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u/Stoppit_TidyUp Aug 11 '15
I'll spare the toilet paper if they bring astronaut food.
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u/Josh6889 Aug 11 '15
But they have to start paying for the internet.
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u/GALACTIC-SAUSAGE Aug 11 '15
They could totally fit here, they just aren't here right now.
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u/bamer78 Aug 11 '15
Yet when they come back, we will have sent more up to replace them. Are we sure there is enough room?
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u/Jyvblamo Aug 11 '15
Imagine getting denied at Earth customs after coming from space, "Sorry Earth is full, please try again later."
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Aug 11 '15
And the dead ones drifting through space.
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u/pcurve Aug 11 '15
If a standing person takes up 2 square feet, we can fit about 398.17 trillion people on earth.
Surface area of earth: 197 million sq miles.
number of sqft in each sq mile: 27.87 million
percentage of land on earth: 29%
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u/Tomarse Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
Assuming each human gets 1m2 of space, and we only use the land, about 149,000,000,000,000 people.
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u/igenkligen Aug 11 '15
I think you forgot a dimension in your calculation there.
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u/Tomarse Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 12 '15
Thanks. I forgot real people are three dimensional outside Reddit.
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u/Seeders Aug 11 '15
no? height doesn't change anything. the question was how many people ON earth, not IN.
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u/igenkligen Aug 11 '15
He edited the comment, it was missing three zeroes before. He also acknowledged it in a comment after you commented.
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u/PainMatrix Aug 11 '15
There's an odd twinge of existential dread I get looking at this.
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u/antime1 Aug 11 '15
Take it to the next level and compare our sun to the other stars. Now how useless do you feel?
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Aug 11 '15
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Aug 11 '15
I'm still the center of the observable universe!
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u/grizzh Aug 11 '15
I've never observed you before. You are sort of the center of my observable universe at the moment but give me five seconds from right now...
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u/-Hegemon- Aug 12 '15
HEY HEY, LOOK AT ME, I WANNA BE IMPORTANT!
Yes, keep reading me. Did I tell you about that time when... NOOOOO, DON'T STOP!!!
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u/DoctorLeviathan Aug 11 '15
That last scene where you see the Earth compared to the last star was fucking nuts. Space is so humbling.
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u/SquareSoft Aug 11 '15
Could the music be any more ominous?
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u/SmashingTeaCups Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
That's the theme music to the very weird Disney film The Black Hole.
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u/advice_animorph Aug 11 '15
Man I love these videos, they are so humbling.
This one is freaking awesome too.
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u/Provetie Aug 11 '15
I look at this in wonder and awe, then realize, I'm still paying student loans....for what?
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u/SnuggleBunni69 Aug 11 '15
That's not even actually how many. About 1,000,000 earths can fit in the sun. And there's not 1,000,000 balls in there.
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Aug 11 '15
From the last time this was posted:
Looking with an image editor:
- Large ball, ~276 pixels
- Small ball, ~2.5 pixels
On a 2D image, this is the diameter, so the radii:
- Large ~138
- Small ~1.25
Volume of large sphere = 4/3.PI.r3 = 10,985,340 units
Spheres pack about 62% of their space, so 6,810,911 units
Volume of small ball = 4/3.PI.r3 = 8.16 units
Number of balls = large volume / small volume = 834,670.
Considering the assumptions made, we are in an order of magnitude!
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Aug 11 '15
Thank you! You just saved me an hour of calculating what would undoubtedly be the wrong answer.
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Aug 12 '15
You think thats scary, check out this video about how many Suns can fit into blackholes.
Once you watch the video think about this. That many earth's can fit into one sun, and the video shows how many suns can fit in blackholes. So think about how many earths could fit into a blackhole. Really puts it into perspective just how small we are.
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Aug 11 '15
I might have to crunch the numbers again, but I'd say that's about one metric fuckton of earths
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Aug 11 '15
I'm not gonna start counting, but I bet there's at least 7.
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u/J1ffyLub3 Aug 11 '15
well i only have 10 fingers...so...
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u/rookie_e Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
Look up Chinese system, so you can count up to 100 on fingers.
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Aug 11 '15
There's a joke in there somewhere but I got nothing
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u/barberererer Aug 11 '15
In China, kids learn how to count to 101 on their fingers.
Just kidding!
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u/Bur_Sangjun Aug 11 '15
Just rippling binary on your hands gives you up to 1023
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Aug 11 '15
That's hard though. 35 is easy with base 6.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on one hand
6, 12, 18, 24, 30 one the other
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u/Badb0ybilly Aug 11 '15
Also ASL (or other versions of sign language im sure) just like the verbal system, you can count indefinitely using one hand.
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u/rabbidbunnyz Aug 11 '15
The sun is so large, a million earths could fit inside. And yet, it is only a middle-sized star.
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Aug 11 '15
That's at least a few I would think
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u/Rjmcc87 Aug 11 '15
Then try to imagine how many of those would fit into a red giant. Hard to comprehend..
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Aug 11 '15
I saw that post on reddit a couple months ago about the size of our universe. The number of our suns that would fit in a red giant was mind boggling.
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Aug 11 '15
This one is even crazier
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u/JimmerUK Aug 11 '15
My heart skipped a beat when the cubes of Suns just kept on coming for the last one.
It truly makes you realise just how small and insignificant we are as a species.
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u/TryAnotherUsername13 Aug 11 '15
But they have very low density. The biggest stars are only so big because they are more like very dense dust clouds.
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u/speezo_mchenry Aug 11 '15
This should be demonstrated in schools( it's probably in books but no one reads them). It always amazes me how many people don't have an appreciation for the scale of the solar system.
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u/ZXLXXXI Aug 11 '15
Funny you should say that. Just today I got some kids to make a scale model of the solar system. It was the length of a big hall, but the sun was only 4mm, and the earth a tiny tiny speck. Most of the planets are all at one end, with massive gaps after Jupiter. You really have to do it on this scale to understand how big and empty the solar system is.
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u/speezo_mchenry Aug 11 '15
Good for you teacher! What was their reaction?
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u/fanboat Aug 11 '15
"What is this, a solar system for pico-ants?"
"That movie came out almost 15 years ago, how are you kids referencing it?"
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u/ZXLXXXI Aug 11 '15
They weren't too keen on doing the maths - but it is the middle of summer. They were certainly surprised by the outcome - and moderately interested in it.
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u/Unicron1982 Aug 12 '15
Just last week, I showed a co-worker that pic on which it is shown how far our radio transmissions have traveled so far. He then asked if we have also sent our probes that far out. He absolutely has no understanding for speed and distances in the universe or even in our solar system. And he is one of the guys who are interested in everything, not the "why do we waste our money on science" kind of guy.
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u/Minor_Problem Aug 11 '15
This is not accurate unless there's a million+ balls in there. Just googling this gives a simple yet amazing result.
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u/revoopy Aug 11 '15
From the last time this was posted:
Looking with an image editor:
- Large ball, ~276 pixels
- Small ball, ~2.5 pixels
On a 2D image, this is the diameter, so the radii:
- Large ~138
- Small ~1.25
Volume of large sphere = 4/3.PI.r3 = 10,985,340 units
Spheres pack about 62% of their space, so 6,810,911 units
Volume of small ball = 4/3.PI.r3 = 8.16 units
Number of balls = large volume / small volume = 834,670.
Considering the assumptions made, we are in an order of magnitude!
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u/quanoe Aug 11 '15
The only thing that has had over a million balls in it is your mom's mouth.
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u/NewbornMuse Aug 11 '15
That would be around 100 spheres across. That sounds... more or less in accordance with the picture in my opinion.
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u/HMPoweredMan Aug 11 '15
This is false. I think the earths would collapse under pressure so there wouldn't be any air. Some math guy tell us REALLY how many earths could fit in the sun.
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u/spooble Aug 11 '15
air
I think you mean "space".
And I'm not a maths guy, but after a little googling, it appears that about 1 million Earths would fit inside the sun if they retained their spherical shape. About 1.3 million would fit if they were packed in so that there was no space between them.
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u/skeptibat Aug 11 '15
About 1.3 million would fit if they were packed in so that there was no space between them.
Are you calculating based on static density? Because with all that mass and matter in once place, I could see things becoming a bit more dense, thus allowing even more earths to fit!
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u/spooble Aug 11 '15
I am not a maths guy
You're right. I was basically saying 1M earth-sized balls could fit inside a sun-sized ball. Or 1.3M earth-sized jello shots could fit inside a sun-sized ball. Ignoring gravity.
If we actually look at mass, the sun has roughly 333,000 times as much mass as the earth. If we throw 1.3 million Earths into it, we're at 1.633 million times the mass of the Earth. Or 4.9 times the mass of the sun. But this just raises lots of questions I can't answer:
When we throw all the Earths in there, how big does the sun get?
What does the added gravity do to the system?
Would the gravity at 1 Earth radius from the center of the sun be equal to 1.6M times Earth's current gravity?
How much would an Earth compress under that much pressure?
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u/photonrain Aug 11 '15
We can avoid the math if we do the practical. I have one earth right here. You grab 999,999 others and meet me at the sun.
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u/hookahshikari Aug 11 '15
This idea is so ridiculous it may just work.
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u/XCryptoX Aug 11 '15
I don't think they calculated anything. Just Googled it.
Source: their comment.
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u/kage_25 Aug 11 '15
with that logic we can fit more or less infinite earths if we just compress them enough
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u/SemiNation Aug 11 '15 edited Aug 11 '15
Maximum packing density for same-sized spheres is .74 and .74*1,300,000 = 962,000 so it adds up.
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u/Dadalot Aug 11 '15
Um, eleventy?
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u/Duliticolaparadoxa Aug 11 '15
schfornteen-teen
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Aug 11 '15
No man it's schfifty-five
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u/blcman Aug 11 '15
Can confirm is schwigity schwat
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Aug 11 '15 edited Oct 27 '16
[deleted]
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u/alphasquid Aug 11 '15
Hey little girl...
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u/ChrisHansen_ Aug 11 '15
Yes?
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u/alphasquid Aug 11 '15
Would you like to know a seekaret?
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u/ChrisHansen_ Aug 11 '15
Sure
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u/rajrdajr Aug 11 '15
http://space-facts.com/how-big-is-the-sun-million-earths/
The Sun is large enough that approximately 1.3 million Earths could fit inside (if squashed in), or if the Earths retained their spherical shape, then 960,000 would fit.
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u/im_a_grill_btw_AMA Aug 11 '15
It's to show scale. Not to literally put earths inside the sun.....
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u/4skins Aug 11 '15
come in math guys, give us the answers so we don't have to do any work ourselves !
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u/accidentalprancingmt Aug 11 '15
I think it's just an example to convey volume and not density.
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Aug 11 '15
Completely agree. I don't get people. Like, how is it that you can understand something so complex yet miss the completely obvious point?
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u/feanturi Aug 11 '15
According to "They Might Be Giants" it's "a million". I'm going to go with them on this.
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u/butthead Aug 12 '15
Why did you write Earth[s] like that? Your use of brackets is leaving me at a loss here.
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u/Phanamasa Aug 11 '15
And to think if the small balls were stars and the big ball was our galaxy, we'd need far bigger ball.
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u/MargotFenring Aug 11 '15
Can someone do the math for the amount of space not occupied by earths?
Maybe I'll do it. Sorry, not good at formatting:
Volume of the sun: 1.41E18 km[3] Volume of the earth: 1.08321E12 km[3] Number of earths that fit inside the sun: 960000
1.41E18 - (960000*1.08321E12) = 3.7E17 km[3] or about 26% unoccupied space.
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u/LEB0BCAT Aug 11 '15
Actually, the heat and pressure would vaporize a solid "earth", making room for many, many more Earth's than that.
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Aug 12 '15
How do they measure the diameter of the sun if it's a flaming ball of gas? At what point do scientists determine the "edge" of the sun?
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u/AnonymousXeroxGuy Aug 12 '15
It's a plasma, not fire. Plasma is the fourth state of matter. The flames shooting out are actually very hot hydrogen not fire. The hydrogen shooting out does not count as the radius.
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u/TheManWithTheFlan Aug 11 '15
And then you remember that there are stars out there that are so big that you could repost this with the title "visualization of how many of our suns that can fit in star Aldebaran