Another 940 million km of travel completed

4 Responses to Another 940 million km of travel completed

1. Gilbert says:

   February 14, 2009 at 5:34 PM

   Happy 45th birthday!

   How far have you travelled if you account for all that the spiraling that you’re doing, about 365.25 revolutions in a year, on a sphere (radius 6,371.0 km), and you at a latitude of about 37 degrees above the equator?
2. Eric says:

   February 14, 2009 at 6:02 PM

   Thanks, Gilbert!

   I thought about that, but I didn’t bother to include it since it didn’t contribute that significantly. Ignoring that the path is a spiral, and any surface travel and time spent at other latitudes, the annual contribution of the Earth’s rotation is roughly cos(37 degrees) * 6371 km * 2pi * 365.25, which is about 11.7 million km. That’s only an additional 1.24%.

   I also disregarded a much larger component, the rotation of the galaxy, because it isn’t known very precisely (perhaps 6 to 7 billion km/year), and any movement of the galaxy within the Local Group or at larger scales.

   I should have known that someone would call me on it!
3. Les says:

   February 16, 2009 at 4:39 PM

   Just a rough estimate, you should have as much energy as 17 tons of TNT should you hit something “still”

   Happy birthday.
4. Eric says:

   February 16, 2009 at 4:56 PM

   Thanks, Les! I’ll have to watch out for “stationary” objects.