https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=67.162.26.92 2026-07-10T13:44:23Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.30.0 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1204:_Detail&diff=35201 2013-04-26T05:27:37Z

<p>67.162.26.92: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 1204<br /> | date = April 26, 2013<br /> | title = Detail<br /> | image = detail.png<br /> | titletext = 2031: Google defends the swiveling roof-mounted scanning electron microscopes on its Street View cars, saying they 'don't reveal anything that couldn't be seen by any pedestrian scanning your house with an electron microscope.'<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> [[wikipedia:Google Earth|Google Earth]] is a mapping software provided by Google that allows people to see the Earth from a birds-eye-view perspective. If you zoom in close enough, you can see individual streets - or in this case, a neighborhood.<br /> <br /> [[wikipedia:Display resolution|Resolution]] is a term used in computing, meaning the number of pixels within a given area, usually with one square inch (ppi, pixels per inch). As the quality of satellite technology increases, they are able to take higher quality images from space for software such as Google Maps. In this way, they will continually increase the resolution of Google Earth such that it increases logarithmically.<br /> <br /> The [[wikipedia:Planck_length|Planck length]] is a unit of length and in principle the shortest measurable length. The comic shows how the current growth trend in resolution of Google Earth will hit the Planck length around the year 2100, even though such result is currently considered impossible to achieve.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :My Neighborhood's Resolution in:<br /> :[A chart showing the Resolution of Google Earth increasing on a logarithmic scale towards the Planck Length, with resolution on the y-axis and time in years on the x-axis.]<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> [[Category:Comics]]<br /> [[Category:Charts]]<br /> [[Category:Comics from 2013]]<br /> [[Category:Comics from April]]</div>

67.162.26.92