Height

Title text: Interestingly, on a true vertical log plot, I think the Eiffel Tower's sides would really be straight lines.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Review object descriptions for grammar: Independently review heights: Include why the object is noteworthy in the object description
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic is a companion piece to 485: Depth. Where Depth uses a logarithmic scale to depict the Earth at progressively greater magnification, from Earth's surface to the interior of a single proton, Height uses a logarithmic scale to depict the contents of the universe at progressively smaller distances, from the edge of the observable universe to the grass beneath our feet.

Starting from the top, as one often does when reading comics, we begin with the top of the observable universe, described as being 46 billion light years out from the Earth. This is the longest distance that a ray of light has ever traveled to reach Earth. To the right of the text, Black Hat stands atop the comic, having just dropped a cat off the edge; he may be testing if cats always land on their feet, or may just be being a jerk, per his usual character. As one scrolls down, the depicted distances become less compressed, until arriving at the surface of Earth, all the while approaching a 1:1 scale with real-life distances. As shown in 1162: Log Scale, if Randall didn't do this, the comic would be much, MUCH longer.

In this comic, most objects that are grounded on Earth are scaled logarithmically on the vertical axes and linearly on the horizontal axes (some are scaled linearly on both axes). Displaying objects in this manner noticeably distorts their shape; the Great Pyramid, for instance, looks not like a pyramid but like a bullet. In the title text, Randall muses on how the inwardly-curved sides of the Eiffel Tower might actually become perfectly straightened when subjected to this logarithmic distortion (although it is shown to bulge in the comic proper, meaning Randall probably doesn't fully believe his own musings).

Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the objects are placed at their actual distances from Earth on the log scale, but their shapes are not subjected to the logarithmic scaling of Earth objects, instead appearing as they would be seen (otherwise, round objects like the sun would appear more egg shaped, with the flatter side facing upward). However, objects are still much larger or much smaller than they would be in real life, in order to allow them to be properly seen.

Objects

All objects are sorted from bottom to top by their maximum distance from earth for objects in a solar orbit, and their current distance for others.

Distance	Object	Description
435 ×10²⁴m	Black Hat and cat	Black Hat kicking a cat off the top of the comic, presumably to determine whether it will land on its feet.
435 ×10²⁴m	Top of observable universe
11.3 ×10²⁴m	Hubble Deep Field objects	Objects of extremely distant galaxies found in a long-exposure photograph by of the Hubble telescope, 12 billion light-years away.
9.46 ×10²⁴m	One billion light years
2.36 ×10²⁴m	Great Attractor	An unusual concentration of intergalactic mass.
425 ×10²¹m	Antennae Galaxies (colliding)	A pair of colliding galaxies.
23.6 ×10²¹m	Andromeda Galaxy	A sibling to our Milky Way. It is the nearest spiral galaxy to ours.
9.46 ×10²¹m	One million light years
2.38 ×10²¹m	Cat on a keyboard in space	An internet meme featuring a picture of a cat sitting on a musical keyboard, superimposed on an image of space.
1.56 ×10²¹m	Magellanic Clouds	These clouds are a pair of nearby dwarf galaxies.
263 ×10¹⁸m	Edge of Galaxy	The edge of the Milky Way galaxy, the galaxy in which we reside.
245 ×10¹⁸m	Galactic Center	The center of the Milky Way galaxy.
61.5 ×10¹⁸m	Crab Nebula	Nebula are supernova remnants
14.2 ×10¹⁸m	Horsehead Nebula	A dark nebula that is part of the Orion Constellation.
12.7 ×10¹⁸m	Orion Nebula	A nebula that is part of the Orion Constellation, just south of Orion's Belt.
8.14 ×10¹⁸m	Rigel	The brightest star in the Orion Constellation it is actually a triple star system known alternatively as Beta Orionis
6.08 ×10¹⁸m	Betelgeuse	The star Betelgeuse is displayed along with the location of Ford Prefect on his home planet which orbits Betelgeuse. Ford Prefect is a fictional character from the science fiction parody The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
4.20 ×10¹⁸m	Pleiades	The Pleiades also have a derogatory remark, as per 66: Abusive Astronomy
2.90 ×10¹⁸m	The Romulan Neutral Zone	This marks the edge of the Star Trek Federation.
931 ×10¹⁵m	The first radio broadcast was in January 1910. Since radio waves travel at the speed of light, and this was published in September of 2008 this the radio waves traveled about 98.5 light years. See Contact (1997 film) for a depiction of this. This is also referenced in 1212: Interstellar Memes.
350 ×10¹⁵m	Arcturus	An orange giant star that is part of the Boötes constellation.
320 ×10¹⁵m	Pollux	One of the most distinct stars in the Gemini Constellation it is large Orange Giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 1.1
242 ×10¹⁵m	The edge of Federation Sector 0-0-1	The sector of space assigned to Earth in Star Trek.
224 ×10¹⁵m	"missing WMDs"	A reference to the alleged weapons of mass destruction that where used as a pretence to mobilize the world population against Iraq, and start the Iraq war.
81.3 ×10¹⁵m	Sirius	Also known as Alpha Canis Majoris, the Dog Star, or the North Star it is actually a binary system of Stars consisting of a main sequence white star and a small white dwarf.
56.6 ×10¹⁵m	Barnard's Star
41.3 ×10¹⁵m	Alpha Centauri
30.9 ×10¹⁵m	One parsec.
9.46 ×10¹⁵m	One light-year.
15.0 ×10¹⁵m	Oort cloud	A halo of ice balls surrounding our solar system, but missing the Kupier belt between Neptune and the Oort cloud.
350 ×10¹²m	Bupkis	Yiddish for "nothing". Only a handful of objects are known to orbit between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.
55.0 ×10¹²m	A comet which will destroy earth in late 2063	To coincide with the latest biblicaly based prophesy for the end of the world.
19.5 ×10¹²m	Voyager 1	An early space probe. Distance correct as of 20th Nov 2014, click here to see NASA's live distance counter.
16.7 ×10¹²m	Pioneer 10	Listed distance is an estimate based on this information.
17.7 ×10¹²m	Pioneer 11	By the similarity in appearance to Pioneer 10 this unlabeled probe must be Pioneer 11. Listed distance is an estimate based on this information.
14.5 ×10¹²m	Eris	One of a pair of Trans-Neptunian objects now classified as dwarf planets. The "All hail Discordia!" after Eris is a reference to Discordianism, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek religion based around the goddess Eris. The distance is the maximum distance from earth.
7.50 ×10¹²m	Pluto	One of a pair of Trans-Neptunian objects now classified as dwarf planets. Pluto was originally classified as the 9th planet of the Solar system. Many people was appalled when it was suddenly degraded to dwarf planet. Obviously Randall does not think much of these people thus the comment: Not a planet. Neener neener. The distance is the maximum distance of Pluto from Earth.
4.70 ×10¹²m	Neptune	Neptune is displayed here with its moons. Neptune is the eighth and final planet in our solar system.
3.20 ×10¹²m	Uranus	Uranus is dispayed here with its moons. Uranus is the seventh planet in our solar system.
1.67 ×10¹²m	Saturn	Saturn is displayed along with its moons. One of Saturn's moons, most likely Titan, is labeled as a potential location to find life. Titan is the only known moon to have an atmosphere and oceans. The oceans cannot be filled with liquid water, as it is far too cold, but are instead filled with liquid methane and ethane. Some hypothisize that life could have formed in such oceans.
928 ×10⁹m	Jupiter	Jupiter is displayed along with its moons. One of Jupiter's moons, most likely Europa, is labeled as a potential location to find life. Europa may be covered by a deep ocean of water found under a layer of ice many kilometers thick. Some hypothisize that life could have formed in such oceans.
222 ×10⁹m	Asteroids	The Asteroid belt contains a spaceship from Asteroids (video game)
133 ×10⁹m	Mars	Note the path, reflecting the fact that their distances from Earth vary as the planets move in their orbits with a maximum distance of 261 million km and a minimum of 54.6 million km.
114 ×10⁹m	Venus	Note the path, reflecting the fact that their distances from Earth vary as the planets move in their orbits with a maximum distance of 401 million km and a minimum of 37.7 million km.
138 ×10⁹m	Mercury	Mercury is the first planet in out solar system. The distance shown is the maximum distance from Earth.
149 ×10⁹m	Sun	The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system, around which the Earth orbits.
16.3 ×10⁹m	Discovery One	The Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey, referring to the quote "open the pod bay door, HAL." Also may be a reference to 375: Pod Bay Doors.
9.43 ×10⁹m	Planet Express	The spaceplane is most likely the Planet Express from Futurama, where Fry once discussed "a big heaping bowl of salt."
400 ×10⁶m	Human Altitude Record	Achieved by the team of Apollo 13 approximately 100km higher than the remaining Apollo missions.
384 ×10⁶m	Moon	The Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite.
90.4 ×10⁶m	Snoop Dogg	A toung in cheek reffrence to a rapper notorious for smoking marijuana, is shown as having the second-highest altitude record. Someone who is taking drugs is said to be getting high.
60.5 ×10⁶m	Space elevator	A proposed method of transporting cargo or people into orbit, consisting of a large mass beyond geosynchronous orbit, a station at the geosynchronous point, a cable connecting it to the Earth, and a climber that can scale the cable. Space elevators are also seen in 697: Tensile vs. Shear Strength and 536: Space Elevators.
42.1 ×10⁶m	Geosynchronous Orbit
20.2 ×10⁶m	GPS Satellites	GPS satellites are used for global positioning.
3.94 ×10⁶m	Lunar Lander	The quote is a reference to Contact (1997 film) where the main character Ellie Arroway after witnessing a celestial light show up close says "Poetry! They should've sent a poet.".
800 ×10³m	Space Junk	There is a large quantity of defunct objects in orbit around the earth. Amongst other things, this includes old satellites, rocket stages and fragments from collisions or disintegration. Space junk is also referenced in 1242: Scary Names under the title Kessler syndrome
422.5 ×10³m	International Space Station	The ISS (International Space Station) is a multinational effort to put a research vessel in space. It is currently the largest artifical object in Earth's orbit, as well as the location of the longest continuous human presence in space.
100 ×10³m	The official edge of space as defined by the Kármán line
76.0 ×10³m	Meteors	Meteors are chunks of rock (usually asteroids) that burn up in the atmosphere, producing the bright light associated with them. If the are large enough to hit the ground, they become meterorites, which is why Munroe labeled them only in the upper atmosphere.
25.0 ×10³m	High-altitude balloons	Unmanned balloons, typically filled with helium or hydrogen. The current altitude record was set in 2002 by a balloon named BU60-1 which reached 53,000m.
16.1 ×10³m	1/10 ATM = 0.1 atmosphere of pressure
12.0 ×10³m	Airliners	This is a typical cruising altitude of jet aircraft, equating to roughly 40,000 feet. (Aircraft altitude tends to be specified in feet rather than metres (yay!) )
8.84 ×10³m	Mount Everest	The Earths highest mountain, located in the Himalayan mountain range in South Asia.
8.00 ×10³m	Cory Doctorow	Cory Doctorow in a balloon, a reference to comic 239: Blagofaire.
6.34 ×10³m	Space Shuttle Columbia disaster	The Space Shuttle Columbia and its seven crew were lost when it disintegrated at approximately 63,400m in 2003. This number is inconsistent with the height of the graph by a factor of 10 probably a mistype by Randall.
6.00 ×10³m	Helicopter	Though the record for helicopter altitude (without payload) is 12,442m, normal flying is usually performed much lower. In the US, 6000m is into Class A airspace, which is restricted and requires flight under Instrument Flight Rules.
6.00 ×10³m	Cloud	Though not actually labelled there are a couple of clouds shown. While different cloud types vary in height, 6000m is roughly in the middle of the height range for clouds in temperate regions [1]
5.49 ×10³m	1/2 ATM = 0.5 atmosphere of pressure
1.78 ×10³m	Cueball	Apparently still using Python as shown in comic 353: Python.
800 ×10⁰m	800 meters
800 ×10⁰m	Burj Dubai	Now known as the Burj Khalifa, is the tallest building in the world.
500 ×10⁰m	500 meters
400 ×10⁰m	400 meters
325 ×10⁰m	Eiffel Tower	A famous landmark in Paris, France.
300 ×10⁰m	300 meters
200 ×10⁰m	200 meters
150 ×10⁰m	Kite	Kite string is commonly sold in large spools; a nice thick spool will probably hold 150 meters.
140 ×10⁰m	Great Pyramid of Giza	One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is located in Egypt.
120 ×10⁰m	Pop Fly	In Baseball a 'Pop Fly' is when the batter mis-hits the baseball, which then follows a tall arc deep into the infield where it's easy picking for the other team to catch on its way down. The highest recorded pop fly, not including those that landed in foul territory, was 172 meters.
115 ×10⁰m	Redwood trees	The tallest trees in the world. At 115.61m (379.3ft) Hyperion, a Coast Redwood, holds the record for the tallest tree in the world.
100 ×10⁰m	100 meters
20.0 ×10⁰m	Oak	While oaks may grow to be in excess of 40m in height, heights of around 20m are more typical. The person in the tree saying, "Hey, squirrels!" is a reference to 167: Nihilism.
16.4 ×10⁰m	Tallest stilts	The tallest stilts recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records (as of November 2006) were 16.4 meters, or nearly 54 feet.
13.0 ×10⁰m	Brachiosaur	A large genus of dinosaur.
8.00 ×10⁰m	Giraffe	The the tallest living terrestrial animal, with fully grown adults reaching in excess of 5m. While labelled 8m in the comic, the record for height is reported at 5.8m.
1.70 ×10⁰m	Folks	Determining an average height of the world population is fraught with complications, but as a ballpark figure 1.7m is fairly accurate.

Transcript

Top of observable universe

[Black Hat is standing on top, throwing a black kitty down.]

Black Cat: Mrowl!

[Map of the universe from observable universe to Earth. Each area of item is labeled. Labels left to right, up to down:]

(46 billion light years up)

Hubble Deep Field Objects

-One billion light years-

Great Attractor

Antennae Galaxies (colliding)

Andromeda

Holy crap lots of space

-One million light years-

Magellanic Clouds

Edge of galaxy

Galactic center

Crab Nebula

Orion Nebula

Horsehead Nebula

Romulan neutral zone

The Pleiades, duh!

Rigel

Betelgeuse

Ford Prefect

[Three arrows are pointing up above three lines with the following label:]

-Expanding shell of radio transmissions-

[Above a dotted line:]

Edge of federation sector 0-0-1

Pollux

Arcturus

Missing WMDs

Sirius

Barnard's Star

Alpha Centauri

-One parsec-

-One light year-

Oort Cloud (?)

Bupkis

Comet which will destroy Earth in late 2063

Pioneer 10

Voyager I

Eris (All hail Discordia!)

Pluto (Not a planet. Neener neener.)

Neptune

Uranus

Saturn

[Two arrows point to two moons, one next to each of the planets aboe and below.]

<-- Life -->

Jupiter

Asteroids

Mars

Venus

Sun

Mercury

Spaceship Planet Express: Hey, a heaping bowl of salt!

Spaceship Discovery One: Open the fridge door, Hal.

Moon

Human altitude record (Apollo 13)

2nd place: Snoop Dogg

Space elevator - One of these days, promise!

Geosynchronous Orbit

GPS satellites

Lunar lander: In retrospect, they shouldn't have sent a poet. I have no idea how to land.

International Space Station

Space junk

-Official edge of space (100 km)-

Meteors

-1/10 ATM-

High altitude balloons

Airliners

Shuttle Columbia lost

-1/2 ATM-

Cory Doctrow

Everest

Helicopters (6000 m)

Cueball: Woo Python!

[A vertical scale is drawn along the right side of the picture, starting at 1 km and getting progressivly smaller and smaller.]

1 km

-800 m-

Burj Dubai (~800 m)

500

400

Eiffel Tower (325 m)

200

Kites

Great Pyramid (140 m)

Pop fly

Redwood (115 m)

100m

Oak (20 m)

A person in the oak: Hey squirrels!

Tallest stilts

Brachiosaur (13 m)

Giraffe (8 m)

[Megan and Cueball holding the kite are labeled:]

Folks

The observable universe, from top to bottom'

~On a log scale~

Sizes are not to scale, but heights above the Earth's surface are accurate on a log scale (that is, each step up is double the height.)

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Discussion

Are you sure it reads "missing winds"? It looks like "missing WMDs" to me, which would suggest a political reference to the US engagement of 2003 in Iraq. 109.40.138.109 02:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. Agreed. Changed. PinkAmpersand (talk) 11:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

"The comic starts with Black Hat throwing a cat off the edge of the universe, probably a reference to Schrodinger's cat"

Has the editor here never heard of the "cats always land on their feet" myth? Black Hat would appear to be testing this from the extreme. Anonymous 01:43, 4 December 2013 (UTC) (and yes, that would be WMDs)

If I am not mistaken, this is a wiki; there is no set editor. If you have a suggestion for how to improve a page, it would be apt to edit it yourself. The discussion tends to be a forum for matters that may be tangentially related to the comic, or uncertain suggestions for improving the article. Davidy²²[talk] 03:18, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't aware of the proper terminology. I'll add my line shortly. Anonymous 05:13, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a "(?)" in "Oort Cloud"? 108.162.212.196 02:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Because it's not known if this cloud really does exist. Many objects are assumed to be there at that vast distance to the sun, but that distance is also the reason they could not be detected from earth. Voyager 1, the farthest humanmade object from Earth, will reach that region in many thousand years. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a very important point, and have added this to the Objects table entry for Oort cloud. Redbelly98 (talk) 20:21, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Why is Snoop Dogg in space? 108.162.219.223 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Because he's high as shit, man--he's so high, he's the second-furthest any person's ever been from the earth. 108.162.216.76 10:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Diameter of milky way: 100 - 120 kly (Lets call it 110 kly)
Suns distance to galactic centre: 27.2 kly
Distance to edge of galaxy: (0.5*110)-27.2 = 27.8 kly = 263E18

Is my understanding and maths right? --Pudder (talk) 08:08, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Conversion of pixels to height

Because it is a log graph for the y axis

height_final = height_initial * factor
pixels = Log_base(height)

Using identities to show that a vertical distance on this graph represents a multiplicative change in true distance from the starting point of measure, and that a vertical change (delta) in the same number of pixels represents a corresponding multiplicative factor on total height.

pixels_final = Log_base(height_initial * factor) = Log_base(initial) + Log_base(factor)
pixels_final - pixels_initial = Log_base(factor) = pixels_delta

Solving for the factor and the base of the log function

factor = base^pixels_delta
base = factor^{1/pixels_delta}

From the diagram it appears that a change (delta) of 550 pixels represents a change of x*1000000 therefore we can determine the base and determine the multiplicative factor for any change in pixels in the original drawing.

base = 1000000^1/550 
factor = (1000000^1/550)^pixels_delta = 1000000^{pixels_delta/550}

Therefore:

height_final = height_initial * 1000000^{pixels_delta/550}
The above can be used as an equation to estimate and validate the heights on the diagram, where height_initial is the height of the reference point in meters, pixels_delta is the vertical change in pixels on the diagram, and is positive if height increases and negative if height decreases.

108.162.216.149 12:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

We just need to be careful that the existing heights (which in most cases have been fairly thoroughly researched) are not replaced by heights determined by their 'pixel position'. --Pudder (talk) 11:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, the explanation is intended to explain the comic not the real world. Before you get excited though let me explain, we may be on the same page.

Many height values can be determined from external research, and can be shown to be consistent with the graph (e.g. center of the galaxy). In these cases the researched number should be used in the height column, as clearly these numbers represent the authors intent.
There or other cases where the height is labeled. These should always be used as height, as these numbers represent the authors intent. If they are inconsistent with the scale of the graph this should be noted in the description.
There are other cases, such as where the space shuttle disintegrated, where we can research the numbers, but they are inconstant with the graph by more than an order of magnitude. Any large inconsistencies should be noted in the description, but in these cases the graph position, not the actual position should be in the height column, because this is the closest representation we can have to authors intent.

108.162.216.106 11:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Completely agree with the basis that authors intent is priority, and with pretty much everything written above. What I was concerned about was the possibility of someone indiscriminately changing existing height values based solely on its pixel position, with no cross-checking against the real world height. I would venture that the heights of the real items on the graph are intended by Randall to be at their correct positions, but there may be exceptions. I have a personal bias here, in that I spent quite considerable time doing research on many of the heights. That said, I don't in any way expect the height entries I worked on to be taken as correct, simply that there is some degree of reasoning behind the existing heights, and to change them without checking any discrepancies would be reckless. --Pudder (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The Bodes Law ratio of one planet to the next but one is:

Pi^(9/4Pi): 20Pi^(3/2Pi)

thus rendering:

Mercury : Mars
Venus: Jupiter
Earth : Saturn
Mars : Uranus
Asteroids : Neptune

Not that the inner asteroids appear between Mars and Jupiter on the right hand column. I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the "pulsar" at the top right might actually be a quasar (an active galaxy). They certainly are distant objects, so someone more versed with the wiki may want to have a look. 141.101.99.123 20:10, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

108.162.229.129 15:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Randall is stating that this is the longest distance that a ray of light has ever traveled to reach Earth, which implies that the universe is about 46 billion years old

Never hear of the expanding space? 108.162.229.129 15:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

2nd Place: Snoop Dogg will never fail to make me chuckle. Psychoticpotato (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

482: Height

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