How big is big?
We are all familiar with measurements that we use on a daily basis. If I said someone was six foot tall, the majority of people would have a general understanding of that height. But this is a measurement we use on a regular basis and it is one we can visualize.
But how familiar are we with larger measurements that are more difficult to visualize? It may be a 20km drive to work but would we recognize 20km if we saw it on a map? Shown below are two satellite photos. One of them shows one square kilometer of terrain while the other is either 20% larger or 20% smaller. Can you tell which is which?
One of these photos represents one square kilometer. Which one is it?
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The larger of the two photos correctly depicts one square kilometer. If you had any difficulty in choosing the correct one you are not alone. A lot of people only have a general idea of distance. If you think that we do poorly on small distances it gets even worse the larger you go.
Shown below is a diagram drawn to scale depicting the size and distance between the moon and the Earth. For a lot of people this is a surprise and the general perception is that the Earth is closer to the moon.
The diameter of the Earth is 12756km but what does that really mean? Unless we can visualize that in some meaningful way then the number is meaningless. I could just have said 21567km as that still feels like a realistic number for the diameter of the Earth. It's only when we go to extremes that we notice that something is wrong.
Will we ever be able to accurately judge larger distances? For the majority of people the answer is no. We are not exposed to large distances and we have no real need to quantify these types of measurements. Maybe for the majority of people it just simply isn't important.
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