482: Height

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Height

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Title text: Interestingly, on a true vertical log plot, I think the Eiffel Tower's sides would really be straight lines.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: A number of the items are lacking descriptions, and distances. As this comic is about distance this is more critical than descriptions. If the object is not real, an estimate based on the comic and scale is good If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic is a companion piece to 485: Depth, which explores a logarithmic scale from Earth's atmosphere down to the interior of a single proton. Height begins this process by viewing logarithmically smaller scales showing several objects in the universe, both real and fictional, from farthest (top) to closest (bottom). The comic starts with Black Hat throwing a cat off the edge of the universe thus testing to the extreme, the common myth that a cat will always land on its feet. There could also be a reference to Schrodinger's cat since it seems to be outside the observable universe (for us). It thus exists in a super-position of both living and dead until we actually 'observe' it and force it to be in one of the states.

The top of the universe is shown as the distance from which the oldest rays of light reach Earth. The age of the universe is currently stated as 13.8 billion years. But the edge of the Observable universe is about 14.0 billion parsecs or 46 billion light years away from Earth, as shown on the top of the image.

Displaying height logarithmically while displaying width linearly noticeably distorts the shapes of the terrestrial objects. The title text notes that this distortion would approximately cancel out the curve of the Eiffel Tower's profile, and speculates that the cancellation might in fact be exact enough to convert its silhouette to a straight-edged triangle.

Objects

All objects are sorted from bottom to top by their average distance from earth for objects in a solar orbit, and their current distance for others.

Distance	Object	Fictional	Description
435 ×1024m	Black Hat and cat	YES	Black Hat kicking a cat off the top of the comic, presumably to determine whether it will land on its feet.
435 ×1024m	Top of observable universe
11.3 ×1024m	Hubble Deep Field objects	NO	Objects of extremely distant galaxies found in a long-exposure photograph by of the Hubble telescope, 12 billion light-years away.
9.46 ×1024m	One billion light years
2.36 ×1024m	Great Attractor	NO	An unusual concentration of intergalactic mass.
425 ×1021m	Antennae Galaxies (colliding)	NO	A pair of colliding galaxies.
23.6 ×1021m	Andromeda Galaxy	NO	A sibling to our Milky Way.
9.46 ×1021m	One million light years
2.38 ×1021m	Cat on a keyboard in space	YES
1.56 ×1021m	Magellanic Clouds	NO	These clouds are a pair of nearby dwarf galaxies.
263 ×1018m	Edge of Galaxy	NO	The edge of the Milky Way galaxy, the galaxy in which we reside.
245 ×1018m	Galactic Center	NO	The center of the Milky Way galaxy.
61.5 ×1018m	Crab Nebula	NO	Nebula are supernova remnants
14.2 ×1018m	Horsehead Nebula	NO
12.7 ×1018m	Orion Nebula	NO
8.14 ×1018m	Rigel	NO
6.08 ×1018m	Betelgeuse	NO
3.468 ×1018m	Ford Prefect	YES	A character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, shown near his home star; Betelgeuse.
4.20 ×1018m	Pleiades	NO	The Pleiades also have a derogatory remark, as per 66: Abusive Astronomy
2.90 ×1018m	The Romulan Neutral Zone	YES	This marks the edge of the Star Trek Federation.
931 ×1015m	The first radio broadcast was in January 1910. Since radio waves travel at the speed of light, and this was published in September of 2008 this the radio waves traveled about 98.5 light years. See Contact (1997 film) for a depiction of this. This is also referenced in 1212: Interstellar Memes.
350 ×1015m	Arcturus	NO
320 ×1015m	Pollux	NO
242 ×1015m	The edge of Federation Sector 0-0-1	YES	The sector of space assigned to Earth in Star Trek.
224 ×1015m	"missing WMDs"	YES	A reference to the controversy about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
81.3 ×1015m	Sirius	NO
56.6 ×1015m	Barnard's Star	NO
41.3 ×1015m	Alpha Centauri	NO
30.9 ×1015m	One parsec.
9.46 ×1015m	One light-year.
15.0 ×1015m	Oort cloud	NO	A halo of ice balls surrounding our solar system, but missing the Kupier belt between Neptune and the Oort cloud.
350 ×1012m	Bupkis	NO	Yiddish for "nothing". Only a handful of objects are known to orbit between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.
55.0 ×1012m	A comet which will destroy earth in late 2063	YES	To coincide with the latest biblicaly based prophesy for the end of the world.
19.3 ×1012m	Voyager 1	NO	An early space probe. Distance correct as of 11th Sept 2014, click here to see NASA's live distance counter.
16.7 ×1012m	Pioneer 10	NO	*Estimated distance based on this information*
13.6 ×109m	Pioneer 11	NO	By the similarity in appearance to Pioneer 10 this unlabeled probe must be Pioneer 11 *Estimated distance based on this information*
	Eris	NO	The "All hail Discordia!" after Eris is a reference to Discordianism, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek religion based around the goddess Eris. One of a pair of TNOs now classified as dwarf planets.
	Pluto	NO	One of a pair of TNOs now classified as dwarf planets.
	Neptune	NO
	Uranus	NO
	Saturn	NO
	Titan	NO	Saturn's moon Titan is the only known moon to have an atmosphere - although nothing like the one on earth. There may be oceans on the moon, but not filled with water but with liquid methane and ethane. It is way too cold for liquid water. Still in such oceans life could also have formed.
	Jupiter	NO
	Europa	NO	Jupiter's moon Europa which may be covered by a deep ocean of water - which is again covered by layer of ice many kilometers thick. In such an ocean life could have formed.
	Asteroids	NO	The Asteroid belt contains a spaceship from Asteroids (video game)
	Mars	NO	Note the path, reflecting the fact that their distances from Earth vary as the planets move in their orbits.
	Venus	NO	Note the path, reflecting the fact that their distances from Earth vary as the planets move in their orbits.
	Mercury	NO
149 ×109m	Sun	NO	The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system, around which the Earth orbits.
	Discovery One	YES	The Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey, referring to the quote "open the pod bay door, HAL."
	Planet Express	YES	The spaceplane is most likely the Planet Express from Futurama, where Fry once discussed "a big heaping bowl of salt."
400 ×106m	Human Altitude Record	NO	Achieved by the team of Apollo 13 approximately 100km higher than the remaining Apollo missions.
384 ×106m	Moon	NO	The Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite.
90.4 ×106m	Snoop Dogg	YES	A rapper notorious for smoking marijuana, is shown as having the second-highest altitude record. Someone who is taking drugs is said to be getting high.
60.5 ×106m	Space elevator	YES	A proposed method of transporting cargo or people into orbit, consisting of a large mass beyond geosynchronous orbit, a station at the geosynchronous point, a cable connecting it to the Earth, and a climber that can scale the cable. Space elevators are also seen in 697: Tensile vs. Shear Strength and 536: Space Elevators.
42.1 ×106m	Geosynchronous Orbit
20.2 ×106m	GPS Satellites	NO	GPS satellites are used for global positioning.
	Lunar Lander (arcade game)	YES	The quote is a reference to Contact (1997 film) where the main character Ellie Arroway after witnessing a celestial light show up close says "Poetry! They should've sent a poet.".
800 ×103m	Space Junk	NO	There is a large quantity of defunct objects in orbit around the earth. Amongst other things, this includes old satellites, rocket stages and fragments from collisions or disintegration. Space junk is also referenced in 1242: Scary Names under the title Kessler syndrome
422.5 ×103m	International Space Station	NO
100 ×103m	The official edge of space as defined by the Kármán line
	Meteors	NO
25.0 ×103m	High-altitude balloons	NO	Unmanned balloons, typically filled with helium or hydrogen. The current altitude record was set in 2002 by a balloon named BU60-1 which reached 53,000m.
16.1 ×103m	1/10 ATM
12.0 ×103m	airliners	NO
8.84 ×103m	Mount Everest	NO	The worlds highest mountain.
6.34 ×103m	Space Shuttle Columbia disaster	NO	*The Space Shuttle Columbia and its seven crew were lost when it disintegrated at approximately 63,400m in 2003. This number is inconsistent with the height of the graph by a factor of 10 probably a mistype by Randall.
5.49 ×103m	1/2 ATM
	Cory Doctorow	YES	Cory Doctorow in his balloon. (first referenced in 239: Blagofaire.)
6.00 ×103m	Helicopter	NO	Though the record for helicopter altitude (without payload) is 12,442m, normal flying is usually performed much lower. In the US, 6000m is into Class A airspace, which is restricted and requires flight under Instrument Flight Rules.
6.00 ×103m	Cloud	NO	Though not actually labelled there are a couple of clouds shown. While different cloud types vary in height, 6000m is roughly in the middle of the height range for clouds in temperate regions [1]
1.78 ×103m	Cueball	YES	Apparently still using Python as shown in comic 353: Python.
800 ×100m	800 meters
800 ×100m	Burj Dubai	NO	Now known as the Burj Khalifa, is the tallest building in the world.
500 ×100m	500 meters
400 ×100m	400 meters
325 ×100m	Eiffel Tower	NO	A famous landmark in Paris, France.
300 ×100m	300 meters
200 ×100m	200 meters
150 ×100m	Kite	NO	Kite string is commonly sold in large spools; a nice thick spool will probably hold 150 meters.
140 ×100m	Great Pyramid of Giza	NO	One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is located in Egypt.
120 ×100m	Pop Fly	NO	In Baseball a 'Pop Fly' is when the batter mis-hits the baseball, which then follows a tall arc deep into the infield where it's easy picking for the other team to catch on its way down. The highest recorded pop fly, not including those that landed in foul territory, was 172 meters.
115 ×100m	Redwood trees	NO	The tallest trees in the world. At 115.61m (379.3ft) Hyperion, a Coast Redwood, holds the record for the tallest tree in the world.
100 ×100m	100 meters
20.0 ×100m	Oak	NO	While oaks may grow to be in excess of 40m in height, heights of around 20m are more typical. The person in the tree saying, "Hey, squirrels!" is a reference to 167: Nihilism.
16.4 ×100m	Tallest stilts	NO	The tallest stilts recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records (as of November 2006) were 16.4 meters, or nearly 54 feet.
13.0 ×100m	Brachiosaur	NO	A large genus of dinosaur.
8.00 ×100m	Giraffe	NO	The the tallest living terrestrial animal, with fully grown adults reaching in excess of 5m. While labelled 8m in the comic, the record for height is reported at 5.8m.
1.70 ×100m	Folks	NO

Transcript

[Map of the universe from observable universe to Earth. Each area of item is labelled.]

[Labels left to right, up to down:]

[Black Hat is standing on top, throwing a black kitty down.]

Black Cat: mrowl!

Top of Observable Universe

46 Billion Light Years Up

Hubble Deep Field Objects

-One Billion Light Years-

Great Attractor

Antennae Galaxies (Colliding)

Andromeda

Holy Crap Lots of Space

-One Million Light Years-

Magellanic Clouds

Edge of Galaxy

Galactic Center

Crab Nebula

Orion Nebula

Horsehead Nebula

Romulan Neutral Zone

The PLEIADES, Duh.

Rigel

Betelgeuse

Ford Prefect

-Expanding Shell of Radio Transmissions [Arrows are pointing up.]-

Edge of Federation Sector 0-0-1

Pollux

Arcturus

Missing WMDs

Alpha Centauri

Sirius

Barnard's Star

-One Parsec-

-One Light Year-

Oort Cloud (?)

Bupkis

Comet which will destroy Earth in late 2063

Pioneer 10

Eris (All hail Discordia!)

Voyager I

Pluto (Not a planet. Neener neener.)

Neptune

Uranus

Saturn

Asteroids

<~life~>

Jupiter

Venus

Mars

Sun

Mercury

Aircraft: Hey a heaping bowl of salt!

"Open the fridge door, Hal."

Moon

Human Altitude Record (Apollo 13)

2nd Place: Snoop Dogg

Space Elevator - One of these days, promise!

-Geosynchronous Orbit-

GPS Satellites

Lunar lander: In retrospect, they shouldn't have sent a poet. I have no idea how to land

International Space Station

Space Junk

-Official Edge of Space (100 km)-

Meteors

-1/10 ATM-

High Altitude Balloons

Airliners

-1/2 ATM-

Cory Doctrow

Shuttle Columbia Lost

Everest

Helicoptors

Cueball: Woo Python!

[vertical scale along right side of image, starting at 1 km and getting progressivly smaller and smaller.]

-800 m-

Burj Dubai (~800 m)

Eiffel Tower (325 m)

Kites

Great Pyramid (140 m)

Redwood (115 m)

Pop Fly

Oak (20 m)

"Hey Squirrels!"

Tallest Stilts

Brachiosaur (13 m)

Giraffe (8 m)

[Megan and Cueball.] Folks

The Observable Universe, from Top to Bottom ~On a log scale~

Sizes are not to scale, but heights above the Earth's surface are accurate on a log scale (that is, each step up is double the height.)

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Discussion

Are you sure it reads "missing winds"? It looks like "missing WMDs" to me, which would suggest a political reference to the US engagement of 2003 in Iraq. 109.40.138.109 02:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. Agreed. Changed. PinkAmpersand (talk) 11:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

"The comic starts with Black Hat throwing a cat off the edge of the universe, probably a reference to Schrodinger's cat" 

Has the editor here never heard of the "cats always land on their feet" myth? Black Hat would appear to be testing this from the extreme. Anonymous 01:43, 4 December 2013 (UTC) (and yes, that would be WMDs)

If I am not mistaken, this is a wiki; there is no set editor. If you have a suggestion for how to improve a page, it would be apt to edit it yourself. The discussion tends to be a forum for matters that may be tangentially related to the comic, or uncertain suggestions for improving the article. Davidy²²[talk] 03:18, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't aware of the proper terminology. I'll add my line shortly. Anonymous 05:13, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a "(?)" in "Oort Cloud"? 108.162.212.196 02:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Because it's not known if this cloud really does exist. Many objects are assumed to be there at that vast distance to the sun, but that distance is also the reason they could not be detected from earth. Voyager 1, the farthest humanmade object from Earth, will reach that region in many thousand years. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a very important point, and have added this to the Objects table entry for Oort cloud. Redbelly98 (talk) 20:21, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Why is Snoop Dogg in space? 108.162.219.223 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Because he's high as shit, man--he's so high, he's the second-furthest any person's ever been from the earth. 108.162.216.76 10:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Diameter of milky way: 100 - 120 kly (Lets call it 110 kly)
Suns distance to galactic centre: 27.2 kly
Distance to edge of galaxy: (0.5*110)-27.2 = 27.8 kly = 263E18

Is my understanding and maths right? --Pudder (talk) 08:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Conversion of pixels to height

Because it is a log graph for the y axis

heightfinal = heightinitial * factor
pixels = Logbase(height)

Using identities to show that a vertical distance on this graph represents a multiplicative change in true distance from the starting point of measure, and that a vertical change (delta) in the same number of pixels represents a corresponding multiplicative factor on total height.

pixelsfinal = Logbase(heightinitial * factor) = Logbase(initial) + Logbase(factor)
pixelsfinal - pixelsinitial = Logbase(factor) = pixelsdelta

Solving for the factor and the base of the log function

factor = basepixelsdelta
base = factor1/pixelsdelta

From the diagram it appears that a change (delta) of 550 pixels represents a change of x*1000000 therefore we can determine the base and determine the multiplicative factor for any change in pixels in the original drawing.

base = 10000001/550 
factor = (10000001/550)pixelsdelta = 1000000pixelsdelta/550

Therefore:

heightfinal = heightinitial * 1000000pixelsdelta/550
The above can be used as an equation to estimate and validate the heights on the diagram, where heightinitial is the height of the reference point in meters, pixelsdelta is the vertical change in pixels on the diagram, and is positive if height increases and negative if height decreases.

108.162.216.149 12:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

We just need to be careful that the existing heights (which in most cases have been fairly thoroughly researched) are not replaced by heights determined by their 'pixel position'. --Pudder (talk) 11:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, the explanation is intended to explain the comic not the real world. Before you get excited though let me explain, we may be on the same page.

Many height values can be determined from external research, and can be shown to be consistent with the graph (e.g. center of the galaxy). In these cases the researched number should be used in the height column, as clearly these numbers represent the authors intent.
There or other cases where the height is labeled. These should always be used as height, as these numbers represent the authors intent. If they are inconsistent with the scale of the graph this should be noted in the description.
There are other cases, such as where the space shuttle disintegrated, where we can research the numbers, but they are inconstant with the graph by more than an order of magnitude. Any large inconsistencies should be noted in the description, but in these cases the graph position, not the actual position should be in the height column, because this is the closest representation we can have to authors intent.

108.162.216.106 11:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Completely agree with the basis that authors intent is priority, and with pretty much everything written above. What I was concerned about was the possibility of someone indiscriminately changing existing height values based solely on its pixel position, with no cross-checking against the real world height. I would venture that the heights of the real items on the graph are intended by Randall to be at their correct positions, but there may be exceptions. I have a personal bias here, in that I spent quite considerable time doing research on many of the heights. That said, I don't in any way expect the height entries I worked on to be taken as correct, simply that there is some degree of reasoning behind the existing heights, and to change them without checking any discrepancies would be reckless. --Pudder (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The Bodes Law ratio of one planet to the next but one is:

Pi^(9/4Pi): 20Pi^(3/2Pi)

thus rendering:

• Mercury : Mars
• Venus: Jupiter
• Earth : Saturn
• Mars : Uranus
• Asteroids : Neptune

Not that the inner asteroids appear between Mars and Jupiter on the right hand column. I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the "pulsar" at the top right might actually be a quasar (an active galaxy). They certainly are distant objects, so someone more versed with the wiki may want to have a look. 141.101.99.123 20:10, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

108.162.229.129 15:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Randall is stating that this is the longest distance that a ray of light has ever traveled to reach Earth, which implies that the universe is about 46 billion years old

Never hear of the expanding space? 108.162.229.129 15:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

2nd Place: Snoop Dogg will never fail to make me chuckle. Psychoticpotato (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)