Editing 1515: Basketball Earth


{{comic
| number    = 1515
| date      = April 22, 2015
| title     = Basketball Earth
| image     = basketball earth.png
| titletext = How many points do you get for dunking every basketball in existence at once?
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Cueball]] is repeatedly attempting to make a size comparison between the {{w|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. But he only gets to say ''If the Earth were the size of a basketball, the Moon would be-''. Then he is interrupted again and again. (See the title text of [[1074: Moon Landing]] for the same Earth comparison).

A {{w|Basketball (ball)|basketball}} is about 25&nbsp;cm in diameter and from this it can be inferred that the Moon should then be less than 7&nbsp;cm in diameter, a typical size for other smaller balls in different sports. Cueball handily illustrates this with two "balls" of the relevant sizes. At first, you think that they just look like the Earth and the Moon. But they are invisibly suspended, and — as seems clear from the first row of panels — they are actually the real Moon and Earth shrunk to the relevant size, hence the title ''Basketball Earth''.

This would place Cueball and his "friends" in {{w|God}}-like positions, outside Earth. Maybe they are even in a different dimension since they can stand and observe the system.

But before Cueball can finish with this common type of comparison, he is interrupted and must begin all over again. We thus never learn what object he would have compared the Moon with. It seems, likely, however, that he would use another ball for the comparison. And the best ball to use would be a {{w|tennis ball}}. See the same sort of comparison of Earth/Moon with basketball/tennis ball in this illustrative video that asks the question: [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/24/how-far-away-is-the-moon/ How far away is the Moon?]. From this, it is also obvious that the system Cueball shows is not to scale with regard to that distance, which should be 7.37 m! This is not necessarily a mistake of the comic, since Cueball never claims that these two balls are in orbit or that they are even the real ones. He is just (in vain) trying to make a size comparison of the two. (Though perhaps further exposition and demonstration might take place after the size comparison.)

A basketball has an average diameter of 24.6 cm (9.7 inches) vs. a tennis ball, which has an average diameter of 6.7 cm (2.6 inches). The ratio between these two diameters is 0.273, which is the same (to three digits) as the ratio given on the Wikipedia page for the Moon: ''Mean radius 1737.10 km (0.273 Earths)''. If he had used a {{w|Baseball (ball)|baseball}}, which is slightly larger, this would still be good enough for demonstrative purposes, as it would have been with an apple.

It is common to describe the relationship between very large (and very small) objects by analogy to common objects on a more human scale. Here is a similar example where someone has made a comparison of the sizes of the Solar system based on a [http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/silveira60.html Sun the size of a basketball]. And here, coming from smaller scales, is an [http://www.infoplease.com/dk/science/encyclopedia/atoms.html#ESCI024ATOMS001 example] that states the following: "Imagine an atom magnified to the size of a football stadium. The nucleus of the atom would be the size of a pea in the centre of the stadium."

It is almost certainly not a coincidence that this comic was released on {{w|Earth Day}}, which is celebrated annually on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. This seems to be something that [[Randall]] cares about a lot, as he has made several comics demonstrating the need for the human race to begin taking better care of our globe. See, for instance, [[1321: Cold]] and [[1379: 4.5 Degrees]].

This comic clearly demonstrates four examples where the inhabitants of Earth did not take care of the well being of our globe, although here on a somewhat grander scale than what individuals can usually do. The typical case is that people did not do this out of bad intentions, but only because they were careless, curious, playful, or just plain stupid.

This comic may be seen as a spiritual successor to [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]] and its follow-up, [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]] in depicting various failed outcomes to the same opening panel.

===Interruptions===
The four interruptions are described and explained below. Each of the four attempts has its own row of four panels in the comic. It is clear from panels one and two in each row that the Basketball Earth is rotating quite fast compared to the time frame of the comic since the {{w|continents}} have moved considerably between frames. It is thus not necessarily the interrupters that have moved the Basketball Earth between frames two and three, except of course in the final interruption. 

No matter how fast it rotates or whatever happens, we always see the Basketball Earth from the same side, as seen from far above the {{w|Atlantic Ocean}}. We can see the continents of the {{w|Americas}} as well as {{w|Africa}} and sometimes part of {{w|Europe}}, all of which are the borders for this ocean.

It seems most likely that Cueball starts all over every time, with a completely fresh and new Earth-Moon system, since they look the same regardless of the catastrophe befalling the prior Basketball Earth, and the interruptions—the second especially—would be difficult to reverse. We can thus suppose that there is still "normal" life going on for each Basketball Earth before the interruption. Most or all of this life would presumably perish for all of the last three cases.

====Black Hat====
In the first interruption, [[Black Hat]] comes in and is amazed by this cool floating globe. Of course, being Black Hat, he has to prod this nice globe with a digit. But by putting his finger into one of the oceans of this "real" Basketball Earth without a second thought, he apparently generates a {{w|megatsunami}} that rolls in over an unidentified city with skyscrapers, utterly dwarfed by a breaking wave.

This is similar to a scene in "{{w|Men in Black II}}" where K messed with a globe that actually is a small planet, and his finger becomes visible in the sky of its inhabitants.  It is also similar to a "Pearls before swine" strip where the character Pig encounters Atlas and the earth in a diner, points to where he lives, and accidentally pokes himself in the eye. It is also reminiscent of {{w|Deep Impact (film)|Deep Impact}} in which a meteor strike causes exactly such a tsunami to hit the {{w|East Coast of the United States}}. Since Black Hat puts his finger down in the Atlantic Ocean, the tsunami would hit all bordering coastlines. Since the coast seems to be an eastern coast (assuming a vantage point of South --> North), and because Randall lives there, the city could be {{w|New York City}} or {{w|Boston}} or one of the other large US cities on the East Coast. Of course, the wave would also affect the coastline (far into land) for all the other continents.

====Megan====
The second interruption occurs when [[Megan]] arrives and pours liquid (perhaps water) from a sports {{w|water bottle}} onto the Basketball Earth, seemingly flooding its entire surface. This would cause {{w|List of flood myths|extensive flooding}}, almost certainly extinguishing all multicellular land-dwelling life. The most familiar analogous situation is from the {{w|Bible}} in the {{w|Genesis flood narrative}} about {{w|Noah's Ark}}. The deluge from Megan's bottle would also change the composition of the ocean and create enormous churn and pressure changes, with widespread or catastrophic effects even on multicellular marine life. And if it were some sort of sports drink inside...

====Cat====
In the third interruption, a cat walks into the shot and then playfully attacks the Basketball Earth, rolling around like it would do with a ball of {{w|yarn}} (see real-life example in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1rTAI2aExI this video]). This also seems to be an allusion to the logo of the popular web browser Mozilla Firefox, which depicts a fox curled around the earth in a similar manner to that shown in the comic.

The people living upon this Basketball Earth would experience cataclysmic events far greater than Blackhat's digital prodding caused, especially as the Basketball Earth is no longer suspended and was thus taken "out of its orbit" and will eventually hit the floor very hard. One way or another, that will surely cause (undepicted) disasters of tremendous magnitude.

====Ponytail====
In the fourth and final interruption, [[Ponytail]] uses Basketball Earth as an actual basketball. She comes running by Cueball, grabs the Basketball Earth, probably bouncing it off the floor while {{w|Dribbling#Basketball|dribbling}} towards the {{w|Backboard (basketball)|basketball hoop}} where she actually jumps in an attempt to {{w|Slam dunk|dunk}} the Basketball Earth. This would ''not'' be good for any residents of Basketball Earth{{Citation needed}}; the combined pressure, movement, and impact damage from this simple sequence would surely kill off all complex life on Basketball Earth.

===Title text===
This simile-callback is continued in the title text with the idea that "every basketball in existence" (i.e., every basketball upon the Basketball Earth, as well as the Basketball Earth itself) is counted towards the score from a single dunking. Randall may have a good estimate of how many basketballs there are, perhaps through research for some ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' question or other research, but almost certainly assumes that there are no extraterrestrial basketballs ''not'' on Basketball Earth. But there might be some question about whether the Basketball Earth's own sub-scale basketballs fall within the regulations.

If we go by the strict rules of league Basketball, the answer would only be '''two points''', as it is illegal to have more than one basketball in play at a time.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing next to a floating Basketball Earth indicating it with his left hand. The continents are clearly visible as seen from above the Atlantic Ocean. This remains the same all through the comic, except that the Basketball Earth rotates a bit from frame to frame.]
:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,

:[Cueball is now indicating, with his right hand, a small pockmarked moon (also floating), in the correct proportions (regarding size not for their distance) to the Basketball Earth, which is on his other side. Black Hat walks into the panel towards Earth.]
:Cueball: The Moon would be—
:Black Hat: Hey, cool!

:[Black Hat is touching the Basketball Earth with a digit.]
:Cueball: Um.

:[In the next scene, we see a megatsunami on the verge of crashing down onto a coastal city with skyscrapers. The A's are cut off on each side of the panels frames, i.e. they begin outside and finish outside the frame.]
:'''AAAAAAAA'''


:[Back to Cueball standing with the Basketball Earth in the same position as the first panel.]
:Cueball: Let's try that again. If the Earth were the size of a basketball,

:[Same situation as when Black Hat walked in, except now it is Megan that walks into the frame towards the Basketball Earth holding a sports water bottle.]
:Cueball: The Moon would be—

:[Megan squirts the Basketball Earth with the liquid in her water bottle while Cueball just stands watching with the Moon behind him].

:[Megan just walks away while Cueball stares at his "water" Basketball Earth where the continents have disappeared completely beneath the liquid.]


:[Back to Cueball standing with the Basketball Earth in the same position as the first panel.]
:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,

:[Same situation as when Black Hat walked in, except now he spots a cat coming into the frame from the left.]
:Cueball: The Moon— would…

:[While Cueball watches with the Moon behind him, the cat jumps at the Basketball Earth.]
:Cat: Mrowl!

:[Cueball continues to watch while the cat rolls around playing with the Basketball Earth as if it was a ball of yarn.]
:Cat: Rrrrr


:[Back to Cueball standing with the Basketball Earth in the same position as the first panel.]
:Cueball: If the Earth were the size of a basketball,

:[Same situation as when Black Hat walked in, except this time it is Ponytail who enters the frame at a run coming from the left.]
:Cueball: The Moon would, uh…

:[While Cueball watches with the Moon behind him, Ponytail has grabbed the Basketball Earth and is dribbling it out of the frame, still running.]

:[Zoom out from Cueball who continues to watch while Ponytail reaches a basketball hoop and jumps towards it with the Basketball Earth, obviously in an attempt to make a slam dunk.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Basketball]]
[[Category:Cats]]
[[Category:Illustrations of scale]]