this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
1354 points (99.4% liked)

xkcd

8868 readers
62 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

https://xkcd.com/2898

Alt text:

"Some people say light is waves, and some say it's particles, so I bet light is some in-between thing that's both wave and particle depending on how you look at it. Am I right?" "YES, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T BE!"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] V0lD@lemmy.world 69 points 9 months ago (5 children)

No actually. Due to Jupiter, the centre of mass of the solar system is actually very slightly outside of the sun

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 47 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Leave it to Jupiter to mess yet another thing up

[–] frezik@midwest.social 17 points 9 months ago

Stupid lazy ass diabetus planet doesn't even have enough mass to fuse its hydrogen.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Wouldn’t the center of mass constantly be shifting by the planets’ varying positions in orbit?

[–] starman2112@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but it's mostly shifting because of Jupiter. It's just so dang heavy. Like, a couple times heavier than every other planet put together. I don't have the brain wattage to do the cool math right now, but a quick google search says that while the barycenter of the solar system does depend on all the planets, more often than not, it is outside the sun

[–] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Easy reminder:

sun ~ 10^30 kg
jupiter ~ 10^27 kg
earth ~ 10^24 kg

so the ratio is always 1000:1

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 9 months ago

relative to the center of the Milky Way, yes.

Sadly, the quantum foam has no gridlines.

[–] Flumpkin 11 points 9 months ago

So doesn't that mean the earth and sun do not orbit a common center but a varying point based on mostly Jupiter?

Centrists have bamboozled me again!

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Cool. I learned something today

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

But I think the math of the argument is only about the common center between Earth and the sun, taking away all other planets out of the equation, especially Jupiter.