Author Topic: Distance traveled  (Read 3078 times)

PonoBill

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Distance traveled
« on: January 01, 2023, 08:06:13 AM »
I'm turning 76 in a few days, and it's 5 AM, so I can either do some mega-geeky age-related calculations or work on learning Fusion 360. So here we go.

It's common to say "one more trip around the sun", but that isn't the only distance traveled. Ignoring the fact that I haven't lived near the equator year round for all these years, I spin around the globe about 25,000 miles every day (24,859 to be exact, but I'm approximating anyway) so that's 693,500,000 miles in 76 years. Plus the mean orbit of the sun (92,960,000 million miles), so 7,064,960,000 miles in 76 years. The solar system is traveling at 448,000 mph around the galactic center so 298,260,480,000 in 76 years. The velocity certainly isn't additive, but the distance traveled sort of is, so that's 306,018,940,000 miles total in 76 years. I could just do the distance traveled around the galactic center in 76 years since that's the most significant distance, but I'll take credit for all the wandering.

You'd think that if I'd been going in a straight line instead of spinning and orbiting I might have reached someplace interesting, but Proxima Centauri is 25,689,482,000,000 miles away, so no, that's 84 times further. Neptune is 2,800,000,000 miles away, so I could have gone there and back a few (109) times assuming I could somehow direct my personal velocity to that of the solar system orbiting the galactic center.

Of course, the galaxies are also traveling through space (big bang, remember?) at something like 1,400,718 miles per hour. But this is getting boring even for me.
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Beasho

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Re: Distance traveled
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2023, 11:56:35 AM »
Pono you continue to inspire.  Happy Pre-Birthday. 

The good news is this is a very Euclidean perspective.  Some others might claim that you are at the center of the known universe and therefore the speed of light starts and ends with you.  Be damned with all that spinning and dizzying motion. 

Maybe the Earth centrists weren't that far off.

 


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