Thread: Interesting, Odd or Funny Pics.

Originally Posted by spudboy

mouse plague

Originally Posted by spudboy

All the water in the world put into a sphere would only be (apparently) this big:



Does that sound right? Looks way too small to me....

Here's some text that came with the photo:

By Maggie Koerth-Baker
Put all the water on this planet into a single sphere and it would have a diameter of about 860 miles, says the United States Geological Survey. For reference, that's roughly the distance between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Topeka, Kansas.

About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. But water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and earthgwaquifer.html, and even in you and your dog. Still, all that water would fit into that "tiny" ball. The ball is actually much larger than it looks like on your computer monitor or printed page because we're talking about volume, a 3-dimensional shape, but trying to show it on a flat, 2-dimensional screen or piece of paper. That tiny water bubble has a diameter of about 860 miles, meaning the height (towards your vision) would be 860 miles high, too! That is a lot of water.

I really like this illustration because it shows off an important concept: Whether a number represents "a lot" of something or "a little" is pretty damn relative. As the USGS says, that is, in fact, a lot of water. But it also makes for a surprisingly little ball.

It sounds/looks wrong, but is close enough to be right.

Taken from Wiki, "Earth's approximate water volume (the total water supply of the world) is 1,338,000,000 km3 (321,000,000 mi3)"

So working that back gives a sphere with a diameter of about 849 miles, so actually smaller than the 860 quoted

Originally Posted by spudboy

Why?