h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Of course the idea in this entry is not an original one. Here's what Douglas Adams said on this subject:

"To be fair though, when confronted by the sheer enormity of distances between the stars, better minds than the one responsible for the Guide's introduction have faltered. Some invite you to consider for a moment a peanut in Reading and a small walnut in Johannesburg, and other such dizzying concepts."

But I think the entry deserves to be in the Guide in some form or another.

Just to shove my ha'pence into the above argument, the English Key Stage 3 textbooks have similar scale models of the solar system.

For example Spotlight Science suggests:

Sun - cardboard disc, diameter 11cm; or a grapefruit
Earth - ball of plasticine 1mm across. Distance = 12m
Venus - as for Earth. Distance = 5m
Mars - as above but 0.5 mm. Distance = 18m
Jupiter - 11 mm. Distance = 60m
Saturn - 9mm. Distance = 110m
Uranus - 4mm. Distance = 220m
Neptune - 4mm. Distance = 350m
Pluto 0.25mm. Distance = 460m

Nearest star )Proxima Centauri).Grapefruit, 3000 km away.

I devised my own scale as follows:

Sun - beach ball, 30 cm diam.
Mercury - cress seed (1mm). Distance = 12m
Venus - Lentil (2.5mm). 23m
Earth - Lentil (3.0 mm). 32m
Mars - Lentil (1.,5mm). 49m
Jupiter - Ping-pong ball. (30mm). 167m
Saturn - Plasticine (26mm). 300m
Uranus- raisin (10mm). 600m
Neptune - raisin (10mm) 900m
Pluto- cress seed (1mm) 1270m (i.e. 4/5 mile!)

On this scale Proxima Centauri would be 9000 km away. This would be:

Mongolia to the East (of London)
Vancouver (Canada) to the West
Namibia (S. Africa) to the South.

I also think it's worth having a guide entry on this.

P.S. I've seen it said that there are "more stars in the Universe than all the grains of sand on every beach and every desert on Earth" (70 thousand million, million, million = 70 sextillion or 70 x 10 to power 21. (see Genesis 22:17).(Incidentally, I've just realised that this is somewhat smallesr than Avogadro's Constant, which is in my mind at the monment (6.023 x 10 to power 23).

6.022, Bigal

Mal here to thank everyone for their suggestions and very good advice for a novice researcher such as myself. I get the picture that the entry in its present form is not best suited for the edited guide. So I'll take it out of peer review - at least I will whenever I've figured out how to do that. By the way and just out of interest, can entries actually be forcibly removed from peer review on the grounds that they stink? It seems some of you might tolerate a suitably re-written version of this entry and there's a bit of a clamour for amending it to include also the scaling in the microscopic direction. My feeling is that this is a spanking good suggestion, but deserves a separate guide entry. I know humour is not a pre-requisite for guide entries but I'm remembering that DNA himself specialised in humorous, not to mention dizzying concepts. What I'm saying is I'd like to try to keep this entry amusing - not trying to emulate the great man, I mean who could, ever? but rather to be in keeping with his spirit - and I am predicting the funniness of the entry would be lost amongst the amoebae, nanometers and other such technical terms.
To show how the other planets in the solar system sit in this scale would also be interesting, definitely. However that similarly gets us bogged down in the factual, technical and strictly informative, to which my only objection is that such details belong in another guide entry. You see I wanted to focus particularly on the universe at large and to convey its awesome scale, albeit in an amusing way.
Forgive my use of the first person in this entry. I know better now having perused the guidelines - which of course I should have done in the first place. Thanks to Space Amoeba for putting me straight on that one. I'm just so keen.
Thanks also to Mikey, Gnomon, Pimms Lettuce (I could swear it's a cabbage), Anhaga, Big Al and anyone else I've left out.
A few questions on etiquette, if anyone would like to respond: is it rude to visit someone's space without leaving a little Hi or greeting comment? If that's rude, I apologise because I've snuck into some of your spaces and snuck out again without saying diddly squat. Can anyone put me right on this one? Also does one know when an "intruder" - so to speak - is, or has been "prowling" or "lurking" - not that I have any intention of lurking in people's spaces in a rude manner - I haven't figured this out yet and I'm a little bewildered by the scale of h2g2.
Cheers
Mal

Hi Mal,

I frequently pop in and out of other people's PS's without saying 'Hi'. I only leave a calling card if I feel we have a significant amount in common, or if I feel I can contribute usefully to their conversations.

I don't know whether it's possible to see who's visited one's PS.

(i'd also like to know how it's possible to know whether one is on s'body else's list of 'Friends'. Some Researchers have an area on their PS to say thart they are on the 'Friends List of.......)

I don't think it is possible to see who's been to your space. It is quite simple, however, to find out whose friends list you are on. You just need to insert the "watching-users" tag on your PS. It's explained here: A1906328

anhaga. Much to my astonishment that worked straight away

It would be a bit disheartening sitting next to your sad little watching-users tag and seeing that no one has included you on their list of friends. And what if you find yourself on the list of some researcher who you feel for certain is a psycho-killer?
Despite those very negative thoughts, thanks chaps.... you're going on my list of friends... when I figure out first how to do it, and second after I've managed to shift this body stinking up my living room.

Mal

Mal, if you intend changing this entry soon, there is no need to remove it from Peer Review. You can just make changes, then post a note here to say that you've changed it. We'll have a look at it then. If on the other hand, you want a week or so to think about it, it would be best to remove it from Peer Review, as follows.

Go to Peer Review by clicking on the Peer Review link in the left hand column.

Find your entry in the list. There should be a little X beside it.

Click on the X.

That's all you have to do.

It's perfectly acceptable to visit someone's space without leaving a calling card.

Yep. Lurking is perfectly allright. Anyone in the internet can look at anything on this site. If you want to keep things secret don't put them on your personal space.

I actually should encourage people to leave a note at my space when they visit

HELL (Oh, yes! Space Amoeba)

It is a cabbage - you may have realised that finding an appropriate blob (h2g2 parlance for image) to put on your space can be a hit and miss affair. As far as I can tell there is no lettuce blob.

Lurking is the secret of a long and happy life , always lurk - and you may avoid solecisms when responding to someone else's input.

Another good thing to be aware of is that most researchers are only too happy for you to copy tricks out of their spaces to enliven your own. To do this, it would be polite to let them know, but you can 'lurk' how they did it by viewing their space using 'testuserpage' instead of 'U' before their U number in the address bar.

Another way to remove an entry from PR is to click on this: <./>SubmitReviewForum?action=removethread&rfid=1&h2g2id=3005984</.> - it should work on any entry of your own if you put the entry's A number as the id and the requisite tags (< ./> and < /. &gt at either end of the link in a posting. (I just amended this tip from another thread, courtesy of Mikey the Humming Mouse)

Pimms