is that we have the capacity now to know stupid when we see it.
Your 'superscope' at a distance of 390lys from Plymouth Rock would receive 1 Plymouth Rock photon per meter
2 of aperture
every 3.4 billion years per century. Bradford's shoe buttons wouldn't be resolved before all the protons in the Universe decayed. There isn't a method for detecting something that isn't there even in theory; and that's not something technology can compensate for.
I lost sleep over that one.
Well, maybe you should. Stay up a little later each night reading. Unless, or course, you're trying to figure out the structure of benzene.
AbE:
- I took a picture of Plymouth Rock and printed it on graph paper and used the half+ method to estimate the visual area (.97m2) using a penny (19 mm) for scale.
- The surface of the Earth receives 1kW/m2.
- Granodiorite has and albedo of .35.
- The surface area of a sphere with a 390ly (since 1620A.D.) radius is 1033m2.
- A yellow photon (570nm) has an energy of 3.5x10-19J.
- 342W/s divided by 3.5x10-19J gives the number of Plymouth Rock photons per second.
- 9.8x1020photons/sec divided by 1033m2 gives the photons/m2/sec received at the superscope.
Opps! Forgot to convert seconds to years (edit original post).
- The inverse gives the seconds/photon/meter2.
I'd appreciate criticisms of my method.
Edited by lyx2no, : A bit more time on my hands.
Edited by lyx2no, : Missed some 2.
Be still, the demands I make upon your conscience are slight. It is only your flattery I seek, not your sincerity.