Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Feb 5, 2006 15:23:44 GMT -4
No, I don't withdraw it. As I said, I can also cover the moon with my thumb at full arm's length leaving very little space on both sides. I definitely cant cover 3,67 moons even if I wear two pairs of thick gloves one on the other. Armstrong freely made that up without thinking about it first. You're either lying, not very observant, or are the most disproportioned person alive. My thumb measures almost exactly 1 inch in width. And when I hold it up at arm's length, my thumb measures 27 inches from my eye. Thus its angular width is, 2*arctan(0.5/27) = 2.122 degrees. The Moon's radius is 1,738 km and its average distance from Earth is 384,403 km. Therefore, its angular diameter is, 2*arctan(1738/384403) = 0.518 degrees. This is less than 1/4 the width of my ungloved thumb. The Earth's radius is 6,378 km; therefore its angular diameter as viewed from the Moon is, 2*arctan(6378/384403) = 1.901 degrees. Again less than the width of my thumb.
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 5, 2006 15:24:56 GMT -4
No, Stargazer, you made it up without thinking about it. Just like everything else you've said here.
An Apollo space suit glove's thumb is 1.5 inches across. Please compute and post here what angular dimension that would be at a distance of 18 inches from the observer.
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Post by RAF on Feb 5, 2006 15:25:23 GMT -4
But let's not be unjust to Armstrong. After all he wasn't such a full mouthed liar as some of the other "astronauts" rather he was the one who refused answering questions most of them all. Why? Because he is afraid. Oh yes...that is so much better...not only is Armstrong a liar, but he's also a coward. Now if you called him a thief, you'd have the whole "Sibrel hat trick" covered.
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Post by ktesibios on Feb 5, 2006 15:27:30 GMT -4
I guess we can add trigonometry to the list of things Stargazer doesn't know anything about. I wonder if he'll claim that NASA just made up the numbers for the average angular width of one's thumb at arm's distance. Well, I don't know about the dimensions of the "average" human, but I've got a couple of data points taken from life- myself and a male co-worker who is slightly smaller than I am. Both of our thumbs, measured across the base of the nail, are 1" wide. The distance from my eye to the near side of my thum, with my arm outstretched, is 25". The other guy's arms are a little shorter than mine at 24". That gives me a subtended angle for my thumb of 2.29 degrees and for my co-worker's thumb, 2.38 degrees. Using 3476 km for the diameter of the Moon, 12740 km for the diameter of the Earth and 384403 km for the mean distance to the Moon, I get the following angular diameters for the two bodies as seen from each other: Moon: 0.518 degree Earth: 1.899 degree Of course, if I were on the Moon trying to hold up my ungloved thumb, whether it would obscure the view of Earth would be the least of my problems, but it sure looks like there's nothing implausible about Armstrong obscuring the Earth with the thumb of his glove, even without considering the dimensions of the glove, whatever constraints the suit may have imposed on his arm extension, or the phase of the Earth at the time.
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Post by Retrograde on Feb 5, 2006 15:32:40 GMT -4
Well, I don't know about the dimensions of the "average" human, but I've got a couple of data points taken from life- myself and a male co-worker who is slightly smaller than I am. Both of our thumbs, measured across the base of the nail, are 1" wide. The distance from my eye to the near side of my thum, with my arm outstretched, is 25". The other guy's arms are a little shorter than mine at 24". I was going through this exercise as well, but you beat me to it. My thumb is about 2.5cm across, and something like 60cm between my thumb and my eye. So those are pretty similar to what you get. Maybe the conclusion is different when you use metric units ;D
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Post by Retrograde on Feb 5, 2006 15:34:32 GMT -4
Ah, but you neglected to consider that perhaps Stargazer's arm is very long -- say about ten feet. Methinks the problem is with size of a different part of the body... N
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Feb 5, 2006 15:36:07 GMT -4
The distance from my eye to the near side of my thum, with my arm outstretched, is 25". The other guy's arms are a little shorter than mine at 24". Yeah... 24" to 25" is definitely a more reasonable distance than the 27" I measured. I stretched my arm out as far as I could get it to measure a worse-case condition. In practiced I'd probably be a few inches closer.
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Post by Retrograde on Feb 5, 2006 15:36:20 GMT -4
Again, unless he has some sort of deformed thumb, it will easily cover up the full Moon - by a factor of about four. Don't forget to square it! N
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 5, 2006 15:37:54 GMT -4
I'm small, so my farthest reach is 22 inches. Keep in mind that you cannot extend your arm fully in a space suit.
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Post by stargazer on Feb 5, 2006 15:48:18 GMT -4
Again, unless he has some sort of deformed thumb, it will easily cover up the full Moon - by a factor of about four. Don't forget to square it! N Yes, that's important because of the "tiny pea", a rather strange description for an object appearing 13,5 times as large as the moon. Go get Armstrong's arm length and thumb width. Of course, if he has Tarzan's thumbs and can't stretch his arm out completely because of that space suit (I'm wondering how he could look up at the earth but not the stars) he might be able to blot the earth out... You will certainly "solve" that one also.
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Post by JayUtah on Feb 5, 2006 15:53:43 GMT -4
Yes, that's important because of the "tiny pea", a rather strange description for an objet appearing 13,5 times as large as the moon.
But it's not a "strange" description for an object he's seen shrink for three days as he got farther away from it. You're stuck on this notion that the Earth should have appeared subjectively huge to him simply because the moon would have appeared smaller from Earth. But you forget that this was the smallest he had seen the Earth.
Go get Armstrong's arm length and thumb width.
I did; and I challenged you to do the math. Do it.
Oh, and by the way, I want you to notice something. Did you notice how, within about an hour of your posting your claims, all the other people here went out and measured their own thumbs, their own reaches, and provided computations for the angular dimensions? Does this really sound like a group of people who worship me and believe whatever I tell them? No, this is a group of people who have now demonstrated that they think for themselves. So the fact that we all disagree with you cannot be explained by your wild accusations of sycophantia.
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Post by Retrograde on Feb 5, 2006 15:55:52 GMT -4
Yes, that's important because of the "tiny pea", a rather strange description for an object appearing 13,5 times as large as the moon. Go get Armstrong's arm length and thumb width. Of course, if he has Tarzan's thumbs and can't stretch his arm out completely because of that space suit (I'm wondering how he could look up at the earth but not the stars) he might be able to blot the earth out... You will certainly "solve" that one also. I'm sure the others here understood my post N
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Post by Retrograde on Feb 5, 2006 15:58:24 GMT -4
I'm small, so my farthest reach is 22 inches. Keep in mind that you cannot extend your arm fully in a space suit. Sure, but then your thumb is probably smaller too N
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Post by phunk on Feb 5, 2006 16:04:44 GMT -4
You're hopeless.
For one, his suit glove was 1.5" wide, as someone pointed out already (Jay I think?). To not be big enough to cover the earth, as seen from the moon, he would have to hold his thumb about 2.3m from his eye. I don't think armstrong's reach is that long.
Also, the earth is a LOT brighter than the stars, he can see it with the surface in his view, since he won't need to be dark adjusted to see it, like he would to see stars.
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Post by stargazer on Feb 5, 2006 16:19:20 GMT -4
You're hopeless. For one, his suit glove was 1.5" wide, as someone pointed out already (Jay I think?). To not be big enough to cover the earth, as seen from the moon, he would have to hold his thumb about 2.3m from his eye. I don't think armstrong's reach is that long. Also, the earth is a LOT brighter than the stars, he can see it with the surface in his view, since he won't need to be dark adjusted to see it, like he would to see stars. Not that dark adaptation nonsense again. And actually I was more wondering how he could look up with that space suit, since we have been told that was virtually impossible to do. Now we should get the information how high above the lunar horizon the earth was standing during Apollo 11...
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