Question

Let's say the Earth was the size of a basketball. Assume that the width of a sheet of paper is 0.1mm and that a basketball has a circumference of 75cm.

a) When you scale down, how many sheets of paper would you need to represent the atmosphere if the Earth was the size of a basketball?

Answer 1

first you have to search for the circumference of earth and the thickness of our atmosphere.. After that you have to divide earth's circumference with the cicumference of the basketball to determine the scale.. Multiply the scale by the thickness of our atmosphere (in m) to determine how thick the paper stack has to be to properly represent the atmosphere at that scale.. Then divide that number by the width of the paper in m to determine how many are needed..

Answer 2

thank you

Answer 3

Thank you for actually understanding what I just wrote XD

Answer 4

lol...i get it..i was having trouble wrapping my head around the steps

Answer 5

not sure if you figured it out or not..but i got 4.275 x 10^16 m

Answer 6

the question asks for the amount of sheets so it shouldn't be meters.. I haven't done the math since I'm to lazy to look for the necessary values, so the number may be correct..

Answer 7

well circumference is 40,075,000 meters

Answer 8

and atmosphere is 80,000m

Answer 9

scales to 53433333.33 m

Answer 10

multiplied by 80,000m gives me 4.275 x 10^12 m

Answer 11

then divided by 0.0001 m gives me 4.275x10^16 m

Answer 12

but like you said that's a mass...not how many sheets

Answer 13

oh..well when i divide m/m it becomes unitless

Answer 14

just seems like a lot of paper for a 75cm basketball

Answer 15

I got to the same value so unless were making the same mistake it's correct..

Answer 16

cool i'll run with it

Answer 17

can u walk me through part b of this?

Answer 18

it says...how thick would the layer of the atmosphere where most of the pollution sits be? again in sheets of paper

Answer 19

most pollution sits in like bottom 18km

Answer 20

The problem with this is that you need to know what kind of effect pollution has on the atmosphere.. does it effect the thickness of our atmosphere?

Answer 21

no it's just an in theory question

Answer 22

It effects the air and it has considerable effect on the density of the air but the whole in the ozon layer (and therefore the atmosphere) is not literally a whole.. Therefore, unless someone can tell me how pollution effects the thickness of our atmosphere, I'd say it remains the same..

Answer 23

Unless I'm looking at this question in the wrong way...

Answer 24

well most pollution...is going to sit in the troposphere

Answer 25

which is going to be the lower 18km of the atmosphere

Answer 26

You say most pollution hangs around 18 km.. If you know how thick this pollution layer is you could use the same method as before but instead of using the thickness of the atmosphere use the thickness of the polluted layer

Answer 27

okay...so instead of the 80k..we just use the 18km? and use same steps as in part a?

Answer 28

right

Answer 29

thank you so so much for your help

Answer 30

i really appreciate it

Answer 31

your welcome ;)