First, I would like to appologise for being gone so long. My poor computer's power supply died. (fixed now :-)) That is what you get when you run too low a wattage. I only had a 430 watt supply. Now its 560. :-)
While I was installling my new supply in my computer, I decided to rewatch tha old classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still. When Klaatu (the alien) explains how far he traveled I sat up and took notice. He said 250 million miles. I though for about 2 seconds and figured that the only planets (outside the Earth) that could be within that distance were Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
Then he said it took him about 5 months to travel that distance. Bells rang in my head. I thought for a second and started to laugh (I had never noticed this before). The Earth travels about 250 million miles in 5 months. Interesting huh! LOL
Your reaction to the classic reminded me of a science project my daughter did back in 6th grade. We were driving along and she was fretting about what to tackle - the kids were allowed to choose a project but it was going to figure heavily in their grade.
A fly kept buzzing her and she made some remark about how fast the fly was moving. I added that however fast the fly was moving, he was also in a car moving at 60 mph.
She went "hmmm!" and began adding everything up, the fly, the car, the earth rotating, the earth’s orbit around the sun, the solar system in the Milky Way, the Milky Way through space. I forgot what number she came up with, but it was huge.
Anyway, she put it all together in a presentation and got an "A". I was a very proud mommy!
Ok, 'fess-up. In addition to the Tesla coil and the Van de Graff generator you built in your garage while still a youngun', didn't you also build a working flying saucer??? "Barada nikto", yourself! LOL
Traveling at the speed of Earth? Most impressive.
Glad to have you back online, and what a fast ball God has!
Another great thing about "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is that it's *real math* on the blackboard! The three-body problem, no less