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Walk the inner solar system
Estimated time: 30-60 minutes (walk) 15-30 minutes
(run)
Fun with speed and distance
If you stroll at a moderate pace through the
solar system (3.5 miles per hour), you're traveling at the scaled speed of
light! At this pace, it should take you about 8 minutes (if you don't get
stopped at the traffic light!) to travel to the earth, just as it takes
light 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth. If you're familiar
with space fiction, you're traveling at a scaled warp 1!
Want to know how fast you can run? Have a friend time how long it takes you
to walk (or run if you want to excede the speed of light!) from the earth to
the start of the turn in the bike path. How long did it take? Use the table
below to determine how fast you're moving.
| Time |
Warp Speed |
| 48 seconds |
warp 1 |
| 24 seconds |
warp 2 |
| 16 seconds |
warp 3 |
| 12 seconds |
warp 4 |
| 9.6 seconds |
warp 5 |
To get an idea of how much everything in this scaled universe has been shrunk,
peer across to the far side of Monona Bay. How long do you think it takes the
light to travel to you that you're seeing from those far-off trees? It look
2.5 billionths of a second. That's a tiny, tiny fraction of the time it takes
you to blink your eye.
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