Non-Specific Debate Thread

mnc2fan · Post by **mnc2fan** » Fri 27 May, 2005 4:20 pm

Now that is insane...don't piss off the chinese then they might kill us all.

Toaster · Post by **Toaster** » Fri 27 May, 2005 4:23 pm

LOL thats funny are you positive thats true or not???

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Fri 27 May, 2005 4:28 pm

Well, considering that the planet is about 10^15 times as massive as all the Chinese altogether I doubt they could do much to its orbit.

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Fri 27 May, 2005 4:52 pm

I was joking.

HowEver if all the chinese did stand on chairs at once it would in fact shift the earth a good deal.
Here is a good read
StraightDope
ROFLMAOWTIME
That guy is great.

CoBB that number would put everyone in china weighing LESS than a kg(i believe).

thecheat · Post by **thecheat** » Fri 27 May, 2005 5:01 pm

that's pretty funny

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Fri 27 May, 2005 6:27 pm

Jim e wrote:CoBB that number would put everyone in china weighing LESS than a kg(i believe).

Give or take an order of magnitude, I just estimated it from the top of my head. Maybe you should calculate it instead of relying on 'belief'.

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Fri 27 May, 2005 6:35 pm

Earths mass: 5.98 x 10^24 kg
Pop. of China(2005): 1,306,313,812
Magic number:10^15

5.98 x 10^24 kg / ( 10^15 * 1,306,313,812 )= 4.5kg per person

Ehh... I was off a bit, but sometimes all you can rely on is a belief.

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Fri 27 May, 2005 6:37 pm

I learnt about the 8-min gravity thing from a BBC-documentary once, no idea what it was called though :/
I wonder about the all-chinese-yelling thing... Who would ever ask about something like that?

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Fri 27 May, 2005 6:52 pm

Jim e wrote:Ehh... I was off a bit, but sometimes all you can rely on is a belief.

You know, I've been doing oral exams lately, taking the role of the interrogator. Today it took a guy 50 minutes to convince me that he actually understands the material and deserves a good grade. Bear that in mind.

mnc2fan · Post by **mnc2fan** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:14 pm

Wow, that is a long time to convince a person, did it work?

That is just a LITTLE off...LMAO. You can estamate close to the total mass of all the chinese, but actually weighing everyone.

Jim e · Post by **Jim e** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:15 pm

I think that 8 minute thing is how long it takes light to reach the earth from the sun. 8 minutes to leave the solar system doesn't seem like a long enough time, considering how long it takes to circle the sun.

mnc2fan · Post by **mnc2fan** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:21 pm

Yeah I do believe you are right, it takes actually just over 9 min. for light to reach the earth from the sun. I think the voyager or one of the satelites nasa launched in the 70's just recently left the solar system 2 or 3 years ago. So if the earth did go off orbit we could be floating off for decades, it would have to have enough volocity to keep the sun from pulling the earth into it.

The sun being 93 million miles from earth even that would take a long time to reach the sun. The distance form earth to pluto is probably 3-4 times farther away.

thecheat · Post by **thecheat** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:22 pm

that's whenthe earth eaves its orbit ON its way out of the solar system

mnc2fan · Post by **mnc2fan** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:27 pm

Now that didn't make one lick of sense. There is no way, light can't even leave the solar system in 8 minutes. It takes light 9 to reach earth. And that is only 93 million miles

coelurus · Post by **coelurus** » Fri 27 May, 2005 7:30 pm

Oops, seems there was a misunderstanding there, what I meant was that "if the sun would disappear without any trace, the Earth would stop circling around the Sun after 8 minutes ~= the time it takes for light to reach Earth". There

The distance between Pluto-Sun is rather wobbly (eccentric orbit), but it's about 10x your estimate, thus 30x-40x that of the distance between Earth-Sun.