Scale Model of the Solar System

I thought that it might be fun to build a scale mode of the solar system. I decided to use the scale of 10 centimeter = 1 billion meters. I started by obtaining an enormous beach ball (1.4 meters or a little over 3 ft in diameter) as the sun. So I went to a softball field and placed the sun at home plate. Next came Mercury, a grain of sand 6 meters (18 feet) away, a third of the way to the pitcher's mound. Venus was 1.2 mm, a tiny pebble and was 10.7 meters from home plate, halfway to the pitcher's mound. Earth was about the same size 1.3 mm, another tiny pebble. I placed it 15 meters from home plate, three quarters of the distance to the pitcher's mound. Mars was a tiny, tiny pebble (0.6 mm) 22 meters from home plate, just outside the pitcher's mound.

At last I began to deal with some substantial planets. Jupiter was 14 centimeters in diameter, the size of a softball. I placed it 77 meters (253 feet) from home plate. I was now in deep centerfield.  Saturn was 12 cm (5 inches), a slightly smaller ball. I had to leave the field to place it 1.4 km (0.8 miles) away. Uranus was about 6 cm (2.5 inches) and was placed 2.8 km (1.7 miles) from home plate, Neptune was 4.9 cm (2 inches) and 4.5 km (2.8 miles) away. Finally there was poor little Pluto, the dwarf planet, a grain of sand, 5.8 km (3.6 miles away).

Of course, I did this exercise in my head and making calculations of paper. I couldn't be done in real life unless one had a large property such as a farm or an estate to work with. What I think this shows is that the solar system is a really big place.

Twelve Events that Will Change the World?

In the June 2010 of Scientific American there was an article with this title. Here are the events that the authors think will cause drastic changes to our society, and my own opinion concerning these events.

1. Cloning of a human being. Although it is illegal in many countries, sooner or later someone will do this. Personally I do not believe this will have much affect on anything. What is the difference between a cloned human and one born through the process of a fertilized egg by a sperm in a woman? Essentially none. At first there may be a great stir, but after a while, many people will accept the idea, just as did when In Vitro Fertilization and surrogate mothers were introduced. Of course one possible result is that males could become obsolete. This was one of the main themes in my novel The Bagod.
2. The discovery of extra dimensions of space by the largest particle collider. According to the article this would "alter our whole idea of what reality is." Maybe to a particle physicist, but I doubt whether a layman would even know or care.
3. Receiving a signal from an intelligent race somewhere outside the solar system. The likelihood of this happening is very small. I'm not saying that they don't exist. It's just that the universe is so large that communication with an ET is impossible. Let's say that an intelligent being in a star system a thousand light years away (in the neighborhood as stellar distances go). It would broadcast "Hello." By the time we received the signal, transmitted a reply and the ET received it, two thousand years would have gone by. Kind of a halting conversation.
4. Number four, a nuclear exchange, would definitely change the world,. Civilization would go under absolutely, if anyone survived at all. People my age have been living under this sword of Damocles hanging over heads since the nineteen fifties. So far we've escaped unscathed. My question is why do the leaders of nations even want atomic weapons. Is it a prestige thing like when I was a teenager growing up in the city, it was hip or cool to carry a switchblade knife? It strikes me that world leaders are a bunch of adolescents playing at mutual destruction much the same way as a game of chicken played with high-powered cars, except it is everyone's life they risk, not just their own.
5. Creation of life. Move over Frankenstein. Although this would give a comeuppance to those people who say only God can create life, most people would shrug their shoulders and say, "That's interesting," and go on with their lives.
6. Room-temperature superconductors. This would definitely help with our energy problems since electricity could be sent over long distances with little energy loss.
7. Machine self-awareness. Considering the state of artificial intelligence today, computers have a long way to go to reach this point. But some day they may. The question is would they run the world more or less logically than humans have. If my computer software is an early example, I would say less.
8. Polar meltdown. This is going on at faster and faster rate. The only solution is to do as Noah did and build an ark. Yet there are still many people who do not believe that the greenhouse gases we produce are causing global warming. It's not likely that our politicians are going to step up to the plate and do what is needed to stop it.
9. Pacific earthquake of tremendous proportions. This has already happened in Japan and has caused not only the loss of lives from the earthquake and tsunami that followed but also a nuclear disaster. A bad earthquake on our west coast would have similar results. And it is coming. I still cannot understand why my publisher moved from a nice safe place in the Midwest to northern California. 
10. Fusion energy. Yes, it would solve all our energy problems and environmental headaches. But is it possible? I remember a few years back a chemist claimed to have invented cold fusion. Of course, it was a false claim. Also, would we imitate the sun and change hydrogen into helium? What do we do with all that helium?
11. Asteroid collision. This is a real possibility and would be devastating to the human race and might even wipe out all life on earth. What are we doing to prepare for this catastrophe? Nothing! Sigh. You have to love politicians. When it comes to problems like this, they simply stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best.
12. Deadly pandemic. We've had a few scares in the past couple of years. There was the swine flu and the bird flu. Both of which turned out to not be very pandemic. I suppose a really pandemic could occur. Again, I do not see much movement to do anything to prepare for one. In this day of modern medicine, I doubt though that a pandemic would be as bad as past ones have been. But I am an optimist.