Editing 2187: Geologic Time
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
| Latest revision | Your text | ||
| Line 8: | Line 8: | ||
==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| − | Analogies to explain the passage of billions of years are often used in popular science explanations, to help compress these huge spans of time into something the human mind can comprehend; the football field analogy is one such analogy. {{w|History of Earth|The Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old}}; if you were to present a timeline of Earth as long as a | + | Analogies to explain the passage of billions of years are often used in popular science explanations, to help compress these huge spans of time into something the human mind can comprehend; the football field analogy is one such analogy. {{w|History of Earth|The Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old}}; if you were to present a timeline of Earth as long as a football field (100 yards), then each inch of that length would comprise more than 1.26 million years of Earth's history. |
* Complex life refers to the various animal species which arose in the {{w|Cambrian explosion}} 541 million years ago; the length of time that complex life has existed would translate to 11.9 yards on the football field. | * Complex life refers to the various animal species which arose in the {{w|Cambrian explosion}} 541 million years ago; the length of time that complex life has existed would translate to 11.9 yards on the football field. | ||
| Line 17: | Line 17: | ||
* {{w|Recorded history}} begins with accounts dating back to roughly 3500 B.C.E., about 5500 years ago as of this comic's publish date; it would take up a width of about 111 micrometers. {{w|Orders_of_magnitude_(length)#Cellular_to_human_scale|A human hair can be as thin as 17 micrometers, or as thick as 181 micrometers}}, so Megan's claim that all of human history can fit within the width of a human hair depends largely upon the sample being used. | * {{w|Recorded history}} begins with accounts dating back to roughly 3500 B.C.E., about 5500 years ago as of this comic's publish date; it would take up a width of about 111 micrometers. {{w|Orders_of_magnitude_(length)#Cellular_to_human_scale|A human hair can be as thin as 17 micrometers, or as thick as 181 micrometers}}, so Megan's claim that all of human history can fit within the width of a human hair depends largely upon the sample being used. | ||
| − | [[Megan]], a {{w|geologist}}, | + | [[Megan]], a {{w|geologist}}, used such a long story about how little the time of human history compares to the Earth's total history. She does this to juxtapose it with normal human time-scales, to imply that her being two weeks late turning in her project is immaterial by the standards of the Earth's tremendous age. She tries to sell this story to [[Cueball]] and [[Hairbun]], but Hairbun's response does not seem to bode well for Megan. |
| − | Megan's delay of two weeks would map to | + | Megan's delay of two weeks would map to three nanometers on the football field. The most powerful {{w|electron microscopes}} have a magnification of ten million, which would make it look like three centimeters (about an inch), so her statement about it being "too small to see even with a powerful microscope" is a bit of an exaggeration. The most powerful <i>optical</i> microscope has 6500x magnification,([https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08obscope.html New York Times, March 8, 2011]) which would indeed be inadequate. |
[[Randall]] states in the caption that this is a trick that geologists always try to use when being late turning something in. | [[Randall]] states in the caption that this is a trick that geologists always try to use when being late turning something in. | ||
| − | In the title text, Hairbun and Cueball reply by turning Megan's own argument against her. They promise to pay her for her work in what could be considered a short amount of time on the geological scale - which could easily be many, many times longer than Megan's own lifespan. Megan, like all working people, wants to be paid in a timely manner for her work, | + | In the title text, Hairbun and Cueball reply by turning Megan's own argument against her. They promise to pay her for her work in what could be considered a short amount of time on the geological scale - which could easily be many, many times longer than Megan's own lifespan. Megan, like all working people, wants to be paid in a timely manner for her work, and would be deeply dissatisfied to have her payment delayed for so long. Thus, Hairbun and Cueball's rebuttal proves a point: when other people require you be punctual, it's easy to dismiss them as just being impatient; when you're the one who needs other people to be punctual, it's not so easy to criticize yourself. |
The comparison with a football field is a typical, but doubtful practice to explain people what the size of an area is ([[1257: Monster]]). Here it is used as an analogy with a one-dimensional timescale. | The comparison with a football field is a typical, but doubtful practice to explain people what the size of an area is ([[1257: Monster]]). Here it is used as an analogy with a one-dimensional timescale. | ||
