Martian Marching

September 3, 2012 on 5:33 pm by Michael Grey | In Delightful Data of the Day, Random Thoughts | 4 Comments

At it’s closest Mars is just over 56 million kilometres from Earth. If you could walk at a fair pace, say 6 and a half km an hour you could do the Earth to Mars trundle in about 4000 years.

If you had a car and were driving from Earth at a good highway clip at 110 km/h or so, you’d arrive in Mars 228 years after departure.

If a bagpipe bass drone under average tuning conditions is 80 centimetres or so, let’s say a metre, to help my math (and it’s always needed help), then it would take 56 trillion (56,000,000,000) sets of pipes with their bass drones all lined up, to connect Earth to Mars.

You needed to know that.

M. (is for Mars)

4 Comments

  1. The math is staggering. And I’m sure “McMarvin” – if he starts now – can make it to Mars in those shoes in record time. Bagpipes or no!

    Comment by Jane Clark — September 3, 2012 #

  2. Shoes matter!

    Comment by Michael Grey — September 3, 2012 #

  3. How many 2/4, 6/8, 4/4, & 3/4 marches do you think it would take? Possibly ALL of them say…a gazillion times? (Im no mathematician mind you…)
    Imagine the blisters from your infernal gillie brogues!

    Comment by hector.maccriven — September 6, 2012 #

  4. Good one! Now there’s a math problem for some lucky exam-taker: “If a competition 2/4 march takes 100 seconds to perform and the piper’s step is 25 centimetres how long then how long will it take to march to Mars and how many tunes will need to be played?” Will leave that to someone else to answer.

    M.

    Comment by Michael Grey — September 6, 2012 #

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