2417: 1/1,000th Scale World

|< < Prev Comic #2417 (January 27, 2021) Next > >|

1/1,000th Scale World

Title text: We're worried that a regular whale will get into a 30-foot-deep ocean trench section and filter-feed on all the tiny whales.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a STATUE OF LIBERTY MINIFIG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is a follow up to a previous one, 2411: 1/10,000th Scale World, with a 10 times smaller scale (thus, a 10 times larger world). As in the previous comic, Randall has another seemingly complete copy of Earth, this time at a 1:1000 scale, with various features and warnings labeled. Again, real-world features and phenomena are replicated at scale. As before, the model is very extensive, with several underground neutrino detectors/observatories being replicated.

Several of the warnings point out humorous consequences of the scale, such as goldfish eating blue whales.

Table

Rule	Reason	Notes
Keep hot objects off the the ice sheet over the south pole neutrino observatory
Be patient: Niagara falls will take a few minutes to fill your water glass	The flow rate is scaled down with the size. According to https://what-if.xkcd.com/147/, the Niagara Falls flow is regulated to 100.000 cubic feet per second on the tourist season and to 50.000 cubic feet per second off season and at night. Once scaled to 1/1000, that flow would be 2.83 or 1.41 cm3 per second. If a standard glass of water is 250ml, it would take 1-2 minutes for the waterfall to fill them. However, a 1/1000th replica of scale Niagra falls would be over a meter wide, so without some kind of system to divert the whole flow into one spot, it would not be possible to fill a glass this quickly. Also, the height of the scaled-down Niagra falls would be 5cm, with another 5cm between the water level and the riverbed, so it might be difficult to fill a glass depending on its height.	This item is likely to be a reference to the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls."
Watch for small planes	Taking the popular Cessna 172 as an example, 1/1000th scale small planes would be about 8mm in length, and cruise at speeds of about 6cm/s, much slower than comparable flying insects. A Cessna of that size travelling at that speed would probably cause much more damage to itself than a person if it crashed into one, so the warning is probably there to protect the models rather than the guests.
Warning! Choking hazard! Keep small children away from ascending/descending airliners	Airplanes are apparently small enough for children to fit into their mouths but large enough to potentially make them choke.	In the US, small parts are defined by 16 C.F.R. Part 1501.2 as fitting in a cylindrical test fixture of 1.25 inches diameter that approximates the size of the fully expanded throat of a child under three years old. Once scaled, any object smaller than 31.75 meters would fit in that cylinder. A lot of medium-sized and small aeroplanes would qualify. Furthermore, since pieces that break off during testing that simulates use or abuse by children could also pose a chocking hazard, even large airliners are also a chocking hazard because stripped wings and parts of fuselage would fit in the required size.
Do not remove safety caps	This is a reference to the warning, "Be careful not to step on cities with especially pointy towers, like Toronto, Seattle, and Dubai" from 2411: 1/10,000th Scale World. It's possible that many visitors to that scaled world did not heed the warnings and complained to the scaled world's creators, causing them to cover pointy towers with safety caps for this scaled world. However, now there are people who apparently want to cause harm to others, or at least don't care about not causing harm to others, by removing these safety caps.
No open flames in Zeppelin area	Zeppelins are filled with hydrogen due to its very low density, which allows them to float. However, it is also very flammable and prone to explosions. The most famous of these Zeppelin disasters was when the Hindenburg exploded in 1937.
Do not bother the meteor crater ducks	Meteor Crater in Arizona is over a kilometre wide, so at 1/1000 scale it could be a small duck pond of 1.186m diameter, and 17cm deep at its deepest point. This is (barely) enough space for a duck to swim in if filled to the brim with water.
Trip hazard: The Gateway Arch	The Gateway Arch is a monument in Saint Louis, Missouri. Being a 192 m high arch, once scaled it would be 19.2 cm high, ideal for tripping.
Drone altitude limit
Do not remove Statue of Liberty LEGO minifig	Whoever has made this model has decided to use a small LEGO minifigure rather than a more accurately sculpted replica of the Statue of Liberty	LEGO has released a Statue of Liberty minifigure which is 5.3cm tall. The real Statue of Liberty, from head to toe, is 46 meters tall. At 1/1000 scale this would be a 4.6cm figurine, so the LEGO minifigure would indeed be an appropriate representation at that scale.
Do not let ants into the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
Only one person on the Golden Gate Tightrope at a time	The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge in San Francisco, supported by two 93 cm wide cables. Scaled-down, they would be 0.93 mm wide wires and it would be tempting to use them as a tightrope.
Please stop releasing goldfish into the ocean. They eat all of the blue whales.	Blue whales usually grow to about 20m long in real life, meaning that at 1/1000th scale they would be only 2cm long, meaning that they could easily be consumed by a goldfish.	However, this begs the question of where one would get such tiny blue whales. In the mouseover text, Randall mentions that if real blue whales were to be released into the 1/00th scale ocean they would filter-feed on the miniature versions. Blue whales usually eat minuscule krill, however, the tiny whales would provide a similarly-sized substitute.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Just for reference: the maths to scale down the Niagara Falls flow an convert from cubic feet to cubic centimeters:

> 1e5*(.3048)^3*1000^2/(1e3)^3
[1] 2.831685
> 1e5*(.3048)^3*1000^2/(1e3)^3/2
[1] 1.415842

American editors may want to adapt the formulas to add the numbers in cubic inches.--Pere prlpz (talk) 18:29, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

do we have a category for these small scale world comics if not we might want to discuss that. 162.158.75.246 18:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering about this because when the first two came out, there wasn't a category. Now with the appearance of this one, there is. Does there need to be three in a series? Is there even really a specific number? RingTailedLemur (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Based on the original Star Trek canon, I believe it more than reasonable to say that all of the Enterprises would be able to operate at least partially submerged, but I would be very worried about a scale aircraft carrier breaking in two if lifted. 162.158.62.115 20:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Tensile/shear strength works on cross-section, so would be proportional to the square of the scale, not the cube. A scaled-down Golden Gate Bridge would only support a millionth of the full load, not a billionth, so the proportional load is only 0.3 of a person. (And it basically wouldn't have to support itself, which, as it turns out, takes care of most of the remaining part.) --162.158.183.117 22:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey 162, I rewrote this section a little bit. Would welcome feedback or corrections. Jkshapiro (talk) 20:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Neutrino Detector/Observatory seem to be 2 different things? one under an icesheet, one in tunnels? Some light should be shed on what they are, where they are, wether the ice sheet is to scale, etc. Also why the implication of the neutrino detector being functional ("The fact that people are not supposed to create false positives implies that the neutrino detector is functional.") - also: The no hot stuff on the ice could be just about not melting the ice and therefore destroying the model, instead of messing with the detectors... --Lupo (talk) 06:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Only particles that travel faster than the speed of light (in ice) will emmit Cherenkov light, so the part about the "hot objects" is incorrect. What is shown here is the IceCube observatory, whose main detector part are the "strings" with "DOMs" buried deep down in the ice (between about 1500m and 2500m below the surface) --141.101.69.213 08:45, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I find that the zeppelin part doesn't make much sense (in the comic, not the explanation) as modern zeppelins are filled with helium rather than hydrogen... even "classic" zeppelins were filled with helium if available. The resaon for the Hindenburg not being filled with helium but hydrogen was a ban on helium exports by the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg#Use_of_hydrogen_instead_of_helium Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 09:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Would have been interesting if he had put a shipwreck on the ocean floor next to Cueball with the warning/reminder, "Do not try to raise the Titanic." RAGBRAIvet (talk) 09:46, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

"Do not play with the Titanic." These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 23:39, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

In the upper left corner of the comic there is a girl with a "Mickey Mouse" and perhaps cornrows hairstyle. Is she black? Does Randal have other black characters in any of the comics? Punchcard (talk)

I thought that was Science Girl...looks like her in 1058. Danish (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I find it distressing that someone is trying to introduce an identity policy/agenda into a cartoon using minimalistic stick figures.  Anyone could be anything — Cueball, who is generally assumed to be male, could actually be a female suffering from alopecia areata or other hair loss, perhaps due to chemotherapy; and the pony-tailed character sometime referred to as 'Danish' (and for that matter, how do we know he or she is Danish?) could be a male rocking the old hippie look. RAGBRAIvet (talk) 07:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

or just a person of any gender who likes having really short hair/a shaved head. A person doesn't need to have a medical reason for deciding for a specific hairstyle. But how is asking "is she black?" introducing an agenda? --Lupo (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Danish is named after a pastry. Otherwise though I generally agree with your premise, there's no need to try to project attributes onto characters like this when it's not relevant to the comic. Esogalt (talk) 07:11, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Even in 617: Understocked where real people of colour are pictured, they are drawn in the same style without of any indication of skin colour. Therefore it is possible that that person is black, but I don't think it has any relevance here, as it doesn't change anything about the meaning of the comic. The artstyle simply doesn't reflect skin colour. --Lupo (talk) 11:26, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I just assumed they were all Black.Jkshapiro (talk) 20:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Order of comics

I wonder why he posted this one after the 1/10,000 and 1/100,000 comics instead of publishing them in order. My thought is maybe he worked on them simultaneously but this one wasn't ready, or maybe he made this one because he felt the response to the previous two was positive. 172.69.68.11 23:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I can almost *guarantee* that it's the second one.

Small planes

I was fascinated by the east/west layers shown under "Watch for small planes". I assume this is in reference to actual US FAA and/or global practices? And of course the next question that occurs to me is what about planes flying due north or due south? Can anyone fill in some notes on this? 108.162.245.18 01:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Global. Well, not entirely universal, but common for lot of countries. See Semicircular Flight Level rule. Apparently, New Zealand, Italy and Portugal prefer to divide by North/South but most countries use West/East. -- Hkmaly (talk) 01:34, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Any aircraft with a heading from 0° to 179° is considered to be flying "east", and one with a heading anywhere from 180° to 359° is considered to be flying west. (Headings get rounded to nearest degree, so nobody flies at 359.5°.) Traffic headed east flies at odd flight levels (31,000 ft, 33,000 ft, etc.) while traffic heading west flies at even flight levels (30,000 ft, 32,000 ft, etc.) -- 172.68.174.132 03:38, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

This is sensible (required?) for VFR flights below the flight levels, where the even/odd rules are followed. Up in the PCA, you just fly at whatever level makes ATC happy. RandalSchwartz (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! That clears it up. I've added a short sentence to the table entry. The Artist Formerly Known as 108.162.245.18 06:59, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Girl in the background

I don't get the girl sitting at top left. What is she sitting on?

It's the Antarctic ice sheet. Big, innit? 141.101.76.20 22:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

But why is she up in the atmosphere?

She's not. She's sitting on top of the ice sheet. Danish (talk)

The sheet averages 1.6km thick (1.6 scaled metres) or maybe more. But in places significantly more. The weight of ice can be depressing the ground beneath by greater than a couple of km. The detector array is (at the surface infrastructure) 2800m ASL with variously 1.5-2.5km of string-holes dangled down into the ice-cap. Comparing with Cueball, if brought away from wading in the ocean, that makes him slightly taller than I'd have guessed. (How you can see this - in the same view as the Golden Gate, all those cork-tipped buildings and other stuff - is an issue with the model layout rather than scale.) 141.101.77.126 01:43, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

FWIW I had the same problem at first trying to understand what I was looking at there. It kind of looks like she's sitting about 10 feet above the duck pond. It took me a while to kind of figure out some of the implied 3D aspects of the drawing. 108.162.245.168 07:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

This is the one time that funneling Niagara through a straw would actually work, lol. P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 01:50, 20 September 2024 (UTC)