Smooth Earth

[Anchovyforestbane]

8 hours ago, OceanBreeze said:

“However, the Earth is actually much smoother than the numbers imply over most of its surface. A 1x1 millimeter area on a pool ball (the physical size of the images) corresponds to about a 140x140 mile area on the Earth. Such a small area certainly doesn’t include things like Mount Everest and Mariana’s Trench in the same locale. And in many places, especially places like Louisiana, where I grew up, the Earth’s surface is very flat and smooth over this area size. Therefore, much of the Earth’s surface would be much smoother than a pool ball if it were shrunk down to the same size”

Roundness: “Regardless, the Earth would make a terrible pool ball. Not only would it have a few extreme peaks and trenches still larger than typical pool-ball surface features, the shrunken-Earth ball would also be terribly non-round compared to high-quality pool balls. The diameter at the equator (which is larger due to the rotation of the Earth) is 27 miles greater than the diameter at the poles. That would correspond to a pool ball diameter variance of about 7 thousandths of an inch. Typical new and high-quality pool balls are much rounder than that, usually within 1 thousandth of an inch”

My conclusion:  The claim that the earth is as smooth as a billiard ball is false and it also is not as round. But I have come across still other online sources that disagree and these seem to be based mainly on differences in definitions.

 

 

 

I partially agree with this conclusion. However, I would further elaborate that some parts of the Earth (most of it, in fact) would appear as smooth if not smoother than a queball, however the extreme peaks and trophs (such as Everest and Mariana) and those of similar extremity would stand out to a degree that disrupts the perceived smoothness. In other words, I conclude that it would be better described as having a nonuniform topography than having a rough topography.