Earth's Radius (and exoplanets) - Sixty Symbols

[MrSuperZangief]

I live on a Styrofoam planet.

[frichikendz]

That's a pretty interesting calender in the back you have...

[Desmaad]

Have there been any planets found around Alpha (a.k.a. Proxima) Centauri?

[Desmaad]

@Desmaad Sorry, I confused the two.

[reinux]

Sift the Twos and sift the Threes,

The Sieve of Eratosthenes.

When the multiples sublime,

The numbers that remain are Prime.

[seaplaneguy1]

The USA gallon...a winebibber's gallon... measurement was 7 x 3 x 11 or 7 x 33 = 231 cubic inches. Why this gallon instead of the old Roman Gallon of 6 x6 x 6 = 216 (1/8 of cubic foot)...because 7 is sacred and 33 denotes Christ...sacred blood...

Mile = 5280 ft (statue mile, 1592) = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 5 x 11 = 5280 = 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 x PI / 10. Mile is factored by all numbers 1-12, including PI, except 9. A meter...only 2 and 5. Meter = dumb idea. Mile can be divided by PI !!!!!!!!!!!!

[LamaPaj]

@seaplaneguy1

What the fucking shit are you going on about?

[seaplaneguy1]

@LamaPaj Read it 100 times.

[LamaPaj]

@seaplaneguy1

it is making no sense. I have to draw the conclusion that you are a lunatic.

[seaplaneguy1]

@LamaPaj Earth's radius was the original proposal for the meter, but because the French could not determine it (no orbital space ship in the early 1800's) the French decided to measure the 1/4 arc from the pole to the equator over the distance of France and guessing the rest as as the standard of the meter. That 1/4 arch divided by 10 million IS THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIT OF MEASURE KNOWN AS THE METER. Had they chosen the radius instead, the Inch and meter system would be the same.../25.

[LamaPaj]

@seaplaneguy1

OMG DUDE YOU ARE ONTO SOMETHING HEAR

[seaplaneguy1]

Earth (polar) radius / 10 million = 1 cubit (Noah's ark cubit) = 25 inches. Known for 5-6k years. Meter = 1/4 arc (going through France) divided by 10 million. Meter was was not measured accurately by Napoleon's surveyors. Original proposal for Meter was the polar radius (already taken by cubit, but unknown at the time by French...) So, 1 meter should equal pi * 25 inches /2 = 39.269 inches, but it officially equals 39.370 inches... Earth diameter = 7x360xPI x miles.

[MarkArandjus]

Always wondered about if density would effect a planet's gravity, ever since I heard about black holes. Thanks 60 symbols!

[sabaths1fan]

@kristijanadrian What are you getting at?

[presbarkeep]

Who is the chief of police there? Is he the (wait for it)... Sheriff of Nottingham? :D

[franktaveras]

excuse my ignorance but if Eratosthenes was able to measure the radius of the earth by 200BC, does that mean then the human race knew the world was not flat since then?

[cecasander]

@franktaveras More or less. There was still much debate as there wasn't any definitive proof yet (like photographs taken from orbit), but it got more accepted as mathematics continued to support Eratosthenes' theory. But in fact it was well-accepted since the early middle ages. That is to say, well-accepted by the scholars. Commoners obviously had other things to worry about, and their world rarely extended beyond their village.

[HumaninSeoul]

Why does this man jitter around so much? It's so annoying. I hope his main activity isn't teaching. >_<;;

[wantonmechanics]

@HumaninSeoul He's animated because he has an enthusiasm for his subject which makes watching him much more engaging than listening to a sterile and disinterested monotone. And from his input into the sixty symbols channel he appears to be an absolutely excellent teacher.

Thanks Brady for all the effort that you and everyone involved put into this brilliant channel.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven Hmmm... You don't think the Catholic Church should accept women as priests? I've never heard arguments for that. Do you have any? I think the CC will make those changes, probably out of necessity . I haven't seen any data, but I guess not many decades from now the CC will have a hard time filling all the churches with male priests. And about homosexuals I think it will have to do it out of public pressure, since not far from now the prejudice against them will fall to a bare minimum

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven On marriage I have a compromise position that is usually not liked by any party on the debate. To call the official “state marriage” “civil unions” and to call “marriage” the religious sacrament ANY church can give to that union. I still don’t like the fact that the Catholic Church doesn’t accept gay marriages or women as priests or popes (do you imagine that on a corporation?) but I’m sure that position will change over time… 20 yrs from now? 2000? Who knows…

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven Last point (this is taking WAY longer than I expected but at least some interesting points were made) It's not a matter of doing a headcount. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Ahmadinejad, Torquemada, Kim Jong-il, etc... they are all the same in one important sense and that is: they were considered the infallible holders of Truth and that's ALWAYS something to be afraid of. Religion can sometimes lead to that mode of thinking, and that's dangerous. That's my point.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven The "atheists country" thing was just for lack of characters. I meant countries with high level of atheism (ie: Northern Europe, or Japan, I think, right?). I'm not anti religion nor anti Christian. I'm for people that have the same level of knowledge and rights to have the same level of influence and say on a debate. I don't want to get rid of religion, in fact I consider that religion can have many positive individual and social outcomes as long as it's kept on a private sphere.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven See? we do agree on important things! I'd say morality in general is about making individuals less self centered and more pro-social.

I bring homosexuality because it's for me the most perfect example on how religious differ and secular views differ. Gay marriage is HUGELY important to the church and although I can understand why is that on a socio/psychological basis, in terms of a debate on social policy and ind. rights it's a no brainer choice.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven I won't waste my time on god's existence. There's simply no evidence for god IMO and I'll leave that on the faithful. With whom or by what motivation people has consensus adult sex with doesn't concern me and shouldn't concern you, since it doesn't affect your life or anyone else’s, although I grant you that Japanese porn is kind of creepy :-). I’d think that it probably has to do with the sexual and emotional repression in everyday life in .jp, but that’s a mere hypothesis.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven Of course there are differences in the moralities of different people, so? Still, you (a catholic) and I (atheist) as well as a Japanese, an Indian, etc. would agree in A LOT of what we find moral. That doesn't have anything to do with the Christian's "God's law, that it's in our harts", it has to do with shared moral intuitions and cultural reinforcements (institutions, etc.). Religion has played and still plays a role in that, but I don't think it's the "source" of morality.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven What? Please define "moral decline". Is allowing gay marriage a part of that? what about equality of sexes? Murder, robbery, divorce, rape etc. are not decriminalized, yet there are less among atheists ind. and countries. Mao and Stalin were atheist but Hitler was a catholic (and Germans were Christian) and in neither case what happened had anything to do with religion. That’s not the case with terrorists nor the inquisition, for instance.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven I wasn’t thinking about you but about a way of viewing values and morality in general. And you keep invoking (inventing) daemons to argue! Nobody (that includes “humanism”) thinks each individual should invent morality as they see fit and only respond to themselves (except in their private lives, e.g.: homosexuality). Morality is a social construction with some biol. basis, it changes and atheist societies and individuals are not falling down morally (crime rates, intolerance, etc.)

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven The concept of moral relativism is extr. abused by rel. thinkers. Very few atheists are moral relativist as in thinking that we shouldn't condemn any practice by any society. Yet, that's the description rel. thinkers make, using a false dichotomy. Instead of saying “only my side is morally right on everything, because we have God on our side”, they say “moral relativism is an abomination, it can lead to…” (hence… what? Moral absolutism is right and only my side is always right?)

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven …On the assumption of God existence, his will and nature, people in the past thought owning slaves was ok, as well killing heretics, or stoning adulterers, Sabbath violators and women who don’t get virgin to their marriages. Morality changes and you don’t have any moral high ground to make better moral decisions than me on the basis of believing in god.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven You've proven my point on how typical religious thinking can lead to intolerance. "God's existence does mean that moral relativism is wrong" (??) You use the existence of God (for which there is no evidence at all) to make people to fit to your moral standards. Although morality has some universal basis (check Haidt's moral foundations theory) morality does change over time and that is a very positive thing (cont.)

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven I've never heard the phrase, actually. What does it mean? How can you distinguish truth that is not based on evidence from not truth?

About arguing with religious people, the only thing I say is that it's really difficult to accept other people's views if you think you have the creator of the Universe on your side of an argument. That idea can sometimes be very dangerous, since it can lead you to anything, from supporting discrimination to terrorist attacks.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven You are right, talking about "religious people" is an unjustified generalization. I actually work with people from a catholic university and although we often debate issues such as abortion or gay rights, that doesn't impede the rest of the things we do. Anyway, I still see a dangerous potential in any religious "epistemology", if you will. That is, in the value all religions put in faith over evidence and in the idea that you have God in your side of any argument.

[cristianfcao]

@CommonRaven The moment religious people keep their religion to themselves and open themselves to scientific findings and critical thinking, we atheist will stop acting as we do. For now, as long as religious people think they know better than all the biologists and physicists of the planet, and try to impose so many silly and dangerous views on other people, sorry, but I can't help but to act against.

[Abengoshis]

Lol @ total misunderstanding of everything by Afrocanuk.

[frizstyler]

@noobenstein milleniums most properly

[jihadulnafs]

how can we be so foolish into thinking the univere came to existence by itself? just look at the sun.

[Afrocanuk]

@jihadulnafs You are correct. Also, if life come into existance on its own; what are the chances parents would look after their offspring?

[CO2Junkie]

@Afrocanuk - Parents aren't looking after ribozymes. And anyway, Children don't come into existence on their own - they come about as a result of mating. You may have heard of this - it's when a father puts his pee pee into the mother's vaginy-jay.

But let's say you are right & primordial life didn't come into existence on its own - would you only help your children because a deity told you to?

Which leads to the next question: Do you often talk to deities?

[Afrocanuk]

@CO2Junkie Obviously you have misunderstood my point completely. I stated: "Life," not just humans. Birds and most other animals look after their young without being told to do so. In any case I have my views; you have yours, so we'll leave it at that.

[CO2Junkie]

@Afrocanuk - Except you've now made your views public on a much seen public forum ;-)

I think you missed my point. Some 'birds and most other animals' do not look after their young. Where they told to do so? Or was the parenting failure because they missed the memo? You seem to be counting the hits & not counting the misses.

Do you know what a ribozyme is?

[Afrocanuk]

@CO2Junkie I've made my views visible on a public forum. Good! Your're as pointless as pointless gets. I didn't miss the point which is, you're looking for a stupid argument. Go back to sniffing CO2 and reading your Ishmael books.

[CO2Junkie]

@Afrocanuk - In all honesty I wasn't looking to argue. I was looking for intelligent discourse. You made a comment about life. So I was hoping you could give me your point of view & I would share with you mine on things like ribozymes & phospholipid bilayers (micelles) etc.

"In any case I have my views; you have yours, so we'll leave it at that." Let me be more plain. If you can't take criticism, then avoid making claims of fact on public forums... then you won't need to be such a victim.

[Afrocanuk]

@CO2Junkie If you were indeed looking for someone's point of view for the sake of being intellectually constructive then there are much better ways of articulating your thoughts. You did in fact come across as someone trying to incite a pointless argument. Here is my view. There's too much order around us to accredit everything to chance. And yes, there is a much higher form of intelligence involved.

[CO2Junkie]

@Afrocanuk - You're talking about how life started, but do you have any degrees in the study of life? (Biology) It seems like pontification to make such big claims that lack any agnosticism... particularly when you lack an education in the fields you're making claims about. Of course you're entitled to. You're entitled to think your ass is the center of the Universe... but I think it would be more honest if you added the caveat that you don't even know what a ribozyme is :D

[Afrocanuk]

@CO2Junkie If you were capable of understanding what you read you'd have seen in my last comment I'm admitting to belief in a deity. I have a college degree but not in the field of biology though I've taken biology in college. What do you want to do next, dissect the double-helix? There're countless ways of approaching any given topic; that's why I stated my original opinion. BTW, it good you know what a ribozyme is, you're well entitled to a Scooby Snack.

[CO2Junkie]

@Afrocanuk - U seem so humble. I apologize.

If I'm not mistaken u clearly demonstrated my intellectual inferiority with your condescension. It was silly for me to bring up Biology after u left a message about how life began. You're right. U should b able to come to that conclusion via any degree. Art or drama or even religious studies should give u great insight into how life began. And the DNA molecule would b an absolutely ridiculous thing to consider. U were right to take offense.

[CO2Junkie]

@jihadulnafs - You shouldn't look at the Sun. It would damage your retinas.

[omegavalerius]

And here we are over 2000 years later and we have people having access to basically all human knowledge a few clicks away who can't get half of the facts right he did.

[CoolMinty]

Fascinating, I could watch all day. You ask some great questions Brady ; D

[ManufacturedLack]

A few questions: Why does the earth ring like a bell or resonate for over an hour after an earthquake? Is molten metal magnetic? Why is gravity reduced the deeper you go undergound? Scientist have created antimatter and now seek "the God particle"; will there be an Anti-God particle to match? for polarity or duality? How many electrons and Ions are emitted from the sun? Where do theses particles go? Can the earth absorb those particles? How fast is our galaxy moving through space?

[scientificpublic]

Excellent video. Really illuminating info on how apparently un-earth like new planets may actually be earth-like, depending on their density, not necessary their radius compared to Earth's.

[chentiangemalc]

interesting video. how is density of the planets being calculated just from a wobble of light?

[jesse0192]

Spectroscopy! If they're able to figure out the mass, that's probably another useful clue... but mainly, they figure out which bands of light are absorbed (well, they figure out which are not reflected) to find the most abundant elements... each element reflects a unique looking band of light... i'm sure somebody else could explain this much better than i can, or correct me!

[shagster1970]

So whats with the Kepler telescope? Why are they looking for exoplanets?

[myrmecophilous]

Because it's cool to know about. What more reason do you need?

[13579zoo]

The Bibles say the Earth is round many times in an illustrative mannor. Also, if you were to look at the sky with little scientific knowledge, you would think that the Sun is moving over the Earth. If people thought the Earth went around the Sun, it would give validity to worshiping the Sun. Columbus know the Earth was round also, because he sailed West in order to come out in the East - as in East Indies (India areas) for stuff like spices and things for trading.

[Y0uEnj0yMyself]

Lies, The bible says the earth is flat, god wouldn't mislead us.

[SpacedTime]

@Y0uEnj0yMyself lol, you tell those misguided fools. If the world was round, the people on the bottom would fall off!

[kativilaga]

Ok, but in order to calculate the size of these "earthlike" planets, they also have to know how far they are from the earth and from the actual star right? Just knowing the amount of light doesn't say much about the size of it.. if I'm right..

[myrmecophilous]

The distance from the star can be calculated from the period and the mass of the star I think. Then with that you can make a guess about the size from the depth of the dip in light, I would think. (I am not a physicist though so again that's just a guess.)

[rabbitsib]

wasn't this reviewed already?

[oisiaa]

Very interesting.

[stokeundersiege]

I thought ppl thought the earth was flat until galileo/copernicus came along

[colinstu]

that was whether the earth was the center of the universe (geocentric vs heliocentric or whatever it was)

[stokeundersiege]

@colinstu

thanks

[zeratul575]

a university of einstiens

thats basicly the only way to describe these guys

[entehrend]

damn, it would take a genesis to tell you how big the earth was in 200 BC

[1DARBY1]

wow 200bc that greek was clever as fuck

[76special]

@1DARBY1 you are damn right, my goodness I can't even work my shitty MP3 player right and look at this guy.

[NerdGradeA1]

My science teacher has the lunar calendar behind the guy.

[astropixie101]

nice video brady and mike! i'm currently at the american astronomical meeting where the people from kepler made their announcement on monday. its always exciting to see professional astronomers get so excited about new science!

[culwin]

The Kepler telescope is bigger than the Earth!!! WOW!!!

[iseesquares]

lol i noticed that too

[guitardbucket]

But if a planet is closer to the telescope and farther way from the sun it's being measured against, even if it's a smaller planet it would block out more light because of its proximity to the telescope. So wouldn't the distance of the planet from the sun throw off their measurements, making the planet appear larger than it actually is?

[myrmecophilous]

This was a great video by the way. If there's anything else you can tell us about exoplanets I encourage you to make more videos on the subject.

[metainfinity]

What if exoplanets revolve in a different orbital plane? One in which the exoplanet never goes in-front of the sun from our perspective. Are there ways to find out about those?

[superdau]

For really large planets you can measure the gravitational "pull" on the star. If you would see such a system "pole-on" the star would wobble. You can even measure red and blue shift if the orbit is angled. But as far as I know it won't work for earth-like planets, because they are too small.

Another method that works, when a planet doesn't directly pass in front of the star: the lit side of a planet (when it is in the far phase of it's orbit) changes the observed brightness of the system.

[gigantibyte]

How may dips do they need to measure before a planet can be declared? It seems one would have to study some stars for years, and there must be many more systems that are not edge on.

Is this science used with the wobble technique?

Love these videos. Thanks for posting!

[myrmecophilous]

If I remember correctly, most of the planets they've described so far have had pretty fast orbits. This is a total guess, but I would think the distribution of the orientations of solar systems isn't uniformly random; I would imagine it is probably biased towards being in line with the galaxy somehow, so maybe the odds are better than you would think.

[gigantibyte]

"...I would imagine it is probably biased towards being in line with the galaxy somehow."

Even assuming that, one could only study stars in our narrow horizontal plane. According to Eric Idle, the Milky Way is three thousand light years wide in our part of the galaxy. Imagine all the stars above and below!

[myrmecophilous]

Well actually I think I may have been incorrect anyway; I looked it up and the plane of the milky way is 60 degrees off the plane in which the planets of our solar system orbit.

I wonder if they can tell what plane the planets of a system must be in by observing the axis of rotation of the star. I suppose what we really need is an answer from an astronomer. I happen to know one so I'll see if I can get an answer.

[myrmecophilous]

Ok. Here's what I asked: "The first question is, is it possible to determine what the plane of orbit in a solar system is likely to be from observations of the star alone? Secondly, how likely is it that a given solar system's plane will be edge-on with respect to our vantage point? Are these planes uniformly distributed?"

And here was his response:

" I don't know of any reason that the planes of the solar systems should be in a preferred direction. ... "

[myrmecophilous]

" ... I think that is the case for the planes of binary star systems in our galaxy.

If you could track a feature (eg like a sunspot) on the surface of a star you might be able to figure out the direction of its spin axis and it would be likely that the star's axis is normal to the orbital plane of its planets. However it's unlikely you could do this since stars are pretty featureless and pretty far away so not resolvable - unless there is something you could do with radio interferometry. ... "

[myrmecophilous]

" ... The odds that you get a planet between you and the star increase as the planet gets closer to the star. For smaller orbits, trigonometry tells you that a larger range of angles for the 'edge-on' effect is allowed, so if the angles are randomly distributed you have better luck with smaller orbits. Also this gives shorter periods which means the chance of detection of a periodic dimming is increased."

[myrmecophilous]

er, I missed a crucial sentence. He said "I think they are randomly oriented. I think that is the case for the planes of binary star systems in our galaxy."

[gigantibyte]

This begs the question, how do they know if the transit of a planet is edge on, and not slightly at an angle? Both would give dips in a star's light.

[myrmecophilous]

perhaps 'edge on' in this context basically means 'close enough to edge on so that a planet will pass between us and the star' and that it doesn't matter whether it's truly edge on or not.

[gigantibyte]

I thought perhaps that the time length of the dip might be used in the calculations of determining characteristics of the planet.

[myrmecophilous]

actually maybe by considering just the period and the length of the dip you can figure it out. period is probably a function mainly of distance, so measuring period gets you the distance. then knowing the distance you can determine how the orbit must cross the sun to give you the length of dip you're observing, so in the end you can recover everything you need even if the planet doesn't travel perfectly across the equator of the sun from your perspective.

[DeoMachina]

Don't we need to know the size of the star that the exoplanet passes in front of? How do we calculate that? Or is it easier because they're so bright and big?

[superdau]

For near large stars it is possible (e.g. with Hubble) to directly measure their size.

For smaller or farther away stars interference patterns are used to calculate it's angular size (and for some even the shape).

Other methods are measuring how long (in the milliseconds range) it takes the moon to obscure a star (as you obvioulsy can't move around the moon this works only for a very limited number). You can also use the knowledge of main sequence stars to calculate their absolute brightness.

[BGenerous]

Great summary of Kepler results. Thanks!

[Yony42]

A ridiculous planet lulz

[leporidus]

Moons can have densities and gravitaton comparable to our Earth, too. But often the tidal force of the main body they circle mess up tectonics and the weather there.

Titan seems far enough away from Saturn; maybe there are some adequate extrasolar systems like that out there. But those moons would be even harder to detect.

[TheReasonWhyGuy]

Radius isn't the only important feature, we also need to know it's composition, since radius without composition

[jnthnbush]

that is sad, 200BC someone was able to estimate the radius of the Earth, but 1600 years later, people still believe the Earth was flat.

[seanbrockest]

They didn't have youtube :)

[adamb0000]

i love your videos

[T1carus]

planet or huge alien space station

[quill18]

"That's no space station. It's a moon."

-- Obi-ken Wanobi

[T1carus]

'look its heading to that small mou0on'

[LordReserei01]

This is why I've been fascinated with Science since an early age. I still can't believe there are people who believe the Earth's flat out there. ^.^

Look forward to more videos, keep up the awesome contributions! =)

[SpacedTime]

@LordReserei01 If the Earth isn't flat, then how can God see people around the other side of it?

[DeoMachina]

Wiht a giant mirror!

[LordReserei01]

*facepalm* first present evidence that such a being actually exists, then we can ask that of them.

[TBucker]

Uh....guys....i think SpacedTime was joking....cool your jets.

[SpacedTime]

Thanks TBucker, at least you have your head on. God is very angry with the rest of you.

[Zubinen]

Is God the name of your imaginary friend?

[lewiswenttotown]

@Zubinen .....what?

[SpacedTime]

I'm an Atheist. God is the name of everyone else's imaginary friend :D

[Zubinen]

I prefer to call myself a secular humanist but I suppose I could be considered an atheist(in the sense that I follow no religion). My imaginary friend Bob Li beat God(the imaginary friend of abrahamists) in an arm wrestling match.

[Benjaminb46]

@SpacedTime Why do you have to bring religion into this?

[Lavell1TheElite]

@SpacedTime  I think the universe is god.. I mean it did create everything LoL

[SpacedTime]

@Lavell1TheElite I hear that a lot. The saying "energy is god" or "nature is god" well, why call it god at all? Just call it the universe, or call it Nature. Why is everyone so desperate to pin that label of god onto anything they can grasp at? Just let it go and know that the Universe is the location, and nature is the novelty machine that spews us out. That is certainly enough for me.

[DyceKendoka]

well done....well done... *pats head*

[animalnt]

now now, jealousy gets us knowhere!