Babson Geophysical Globe. U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Schuyler Otis Bland Memorial Library. Kings Point, New York.
I have a globe. It is slightly larger than normal with a diameter of 16 inches. It is nowhere near as large as the Babson Globe shown above, but I like it. I'm thinking I should make some kind of mounting for it, and I got to thinking that maybe I should fill it with concrete so as to give it a more realistic feel. Set something like that to spinning on good bearings and it might be days before it came to a stop.
Then I got to wondering just how much a scale globe should weigh, so I did some checking. Here's what I found:
- density of granite: 170 pounds per cubic foot
- density of steel: 500 pounds per cubic foot
- density of the Earth: 345 pounds per cubic foot
- typical 12" globe: 180 pounds
- my extra large 16" globe: 425 pounds
- Babson globe (7' 6" in diameter): 76,000 pounds
So how high would Everest be on those 3 scales? How thick the atmosphere?
ReplyDeleteOn the Babson globe Mt. Everest would be one sixteenth of an inch high. On the smaller globes it would only be a few thousandths of an inch. 50,000 feet of atmosphere on the Babson globe would be about one eighth of an inch. ISS would be almost three inches from the surface.
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