Friday, June 2, 2017

Ultimate superbowl

E: "If if the earth were the size and weight of a bowling ball, would it be a good bowling ball?"

Me: "No. There's no holes for the fingers to go in."

D: "And it would be too bumpy".

E: "There'd be little spikes all over it, from the mountains".

Me: "I don't think there would, oddly. The tallest mountain is 5 miles high.
Earth is 8000 miles across. The tallest mountains at bowling ball size would be ... *does mental math* one tenth of a millimeter. Would anyone notice? I think real bowling bowls might even have mountains like that in practice."

E: "They would notice that the finger holes were really hot, though. From the lava."

D: "The holes would be a thousand miles deep".

E: "The earth would be destroyed".

Me: "Maybe! I don't think we know enough about volcanoes that size. I don't want us to either."

D: "Life on earth would be destroyed?"

Me: "Yes. Next time we count our blessings we can include 'million-mile-long cosmic bowling lanes aren't smacking our heads every couple of seconds".

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