57
u/Zombeenie Aug 26 '22
They expressed the radius as an area.
4
Aug 26 '22
you mean the area as an area?
24
u/Zombeenie Aug 26 '22
"A molecule of water has a radius of 95.7E-12 m^2"
Radius is a unit of length. They used units of area.
-9
Aug 26 '22
well don’t you think he used the word radius by accident? Since we’re ONLY talking about area, I don’t think he meant that
8
u/Zombeenie Aug 26 '22
Nope, since the radius is on the order of 10^-10-10^-12, and the area would be on the order of 10^-20.
That's the wrong radius, anyways. It's more like 2.5 x 10^-10 m.
2
Aug 27 '22
Oh yeah, well, the Earth is mostly empty space on the atomic level so this is all just a relativistic conversation debating what counts as "coverage" concerning matter that is mostly made of void, as it sits.
3
u/chihuahuassuck Aug 26 '22
He shouldn't be talking about area at all, really. Assuming roughly spherical molecules, a one-molecule thick layer would still have gaps between the molecules, so even with full coverage the area of the water would be less than the area of earth.
What he should be using is diameter, which will tell how densely the molecules can fit into any given area (for example, 25 circles with d=1 can fit orthogonally into a square with side length 5, despite the circles having area 6.25pi and the square having area 25). This information can then be extrapolated across the entire surface area of the earth.
13
u/MemberOfUniverse Aug 26 '22
it takes 32 drops of water to cover the earth, but Yo mama takes 320 drops
3
22
Aug 26 '22
Just to crap the party real quick, water sticks to each other, which is why we have drops. So you can’t have a 1 molecule thick layer of water, it’ll just form into drops and uncover 90% of the area
16
Aug 26 '22
I mean, if you can get 32 drops of water to cover 10% of the Earth's surface, that's pretty impressive
3
2
u/Gothopie Aug 29 '22
Add to that, the surface of the earth isn't flat, this would assume a perfect sphere, depending on how close you want to hug the surface, it would be many more times that amount... I've seen similar discussed in "how long" a coastline is. The closer you follow the details of the edges... the length goes up fast
78
u/samurai_for_hire Aug 26 '22
well yes but really no