Estimate Diameter of Moon Using Pencil Measurements

  • Thread starter Thread starter k_yup
  • Start date Start date
AI Thread Summary
To estimate the diameter of the moon using a pencil, hold the pencil at a distance where its end just blocks the moon and measure the pencil's diameter, which is approximately 1.5 cm. The distance from your eye to the pencil also needs to be measured for accurate calculations. Using the concept of similar triangles, you can set up a proportion between the pencil's diameter and the moon's diameter based on the known distance from Earth to the moon, which is 3.8 x 10^5 km. By applying the measurements and proportions, you can derive the moon's diameter. This method effectively utilizes basic geometry principles to solve the problem.
k_yup
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
im new to the physics world and know this is probably an easy problem but i don't know where to start

Hold a pencil in front of your eye at a position where its end just blocks out the moon. Make approprite measurements to estimate the diameter of the moon, given that the earth-moon distance is 3.8x10^5km.

i figured that you prob had to measure the end of a pencil which i measured about 1.5 cm which is 1.5x10^-5km but i don't really know what to do from there.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Your also need to also estimate the distance from your eye to the pencil.
Draw a picture...there are two similar triangles involved
 
So I know that electrons are fundamental, there's no 'material' that makes them up, it's like talking about a colour itself rather than a car or a flower. Now protons and neutrons and quarks and whatever other stuff is there fundamentally, I want someone to kind of teach me these, I have a lot of questions that books might not give the answer in the way I understand. Thanks
Back
Top