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RichardKennaway comments on Open thread, Nov. 24 - Nov. 30, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: MrMind 24 November 2014 08:56AM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 24 November 2014 12:14:16PM *  9 points [-]

Suddenly, I know the relative sizes of the planets!

HT Andrew Gelman.

ETA: Pluto isn't in the picture, but it would be a coriander seed, half the diameter of Mercury. For the Sun, imagine a spherical elephant.

Comment author: philh 25 November 2014 12:07:38AM 3 points [-]

The radius of the sun is only about ten times the radius of jupiter. I feel like a spherical elephant has considerably more than ten times the radius of a watermelon.

...is what I was about to say until I did research, and apparently it's pretty accurate. A watermelon can exceed 60cm diameter, and wolfram alpha gives an elephant's length between 5.4 and 7.5 metres.

Comment author: Brillyant 25 November 2014 12:04:05AM 3 points [-]

That's either one huge grapefruit...or one tiny watermelon.