Bilbo's Questions on life and stuff

[donnydarkoIRL]

Well here's where objectivity comes in.
I feel the radiation emitted by the sun would increase. However, I believe it wouls simply double.
If the distance between the sun and earth doubled at the same time, would we not be exposed to an equivalent amount of sun radiation?

[Tins06]

I everything doubled our point of measurment would not stay the same would they. If a Mili metre is the space between these two lines /.. / double it /......./....Its not a milimetre anymore. So we would know.

[donnydarkoIRL]

I everything doubled our point of measurment would not stay the same would they. If a Mili metre is the space between these two lines /.. / double it /......./....Its not a milimetre anymore. So we would know.

We would double at the same time. The sapce would appear the same and everything you would try to measure would be twice as big. Therefore the unit remains the same or equivalent, as I said algebra.
x=y
2x=2y

[Kev]

We would double at the same time. The sapce would appear the same and everything you would try to measure would be twice as big. Therefore the unit remains the same or equivalent, as I said algebra.
x=y
2x=2y

I'm agreeing with you on this Donny,

[donnydarkoIRL]

Thanks Bilbo, alwyas good to have some backup

[El Kabong]

If the Earth doubled in size every second then everyone would be crushed by the massive shift in the gravitational pull well within the first 2 seconds

[Kev]

If the Earth doubled in size every second then everyone would be crushed by the massive shift in the gravitational pull well within the first 2 seconds

Well first off it's every 24 hours not every second. And besides that we are talking about EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE doubling in size.

Every single atom, particle and piece of anti matter in the universe double in size.

How would we tell? Is there a way?

[Kirkland Laing]

We would double at the same time. The sapce would appear the same and everything you would try to measure would be twice as big. Therefore the unit remains the same or equivalent, as I said algebra.
x=y
2x=2y

Metres and millimetres are measured using the speed of light and time, a metre being roughly one three hundred millionth of a light-second (the distance light travels in a second.) Both time and the speed of light would be unaffected if everything doubled in size, so a milli/metre would still be the same size it was previoulsy.

[Kev]

Well I'm still not convinced to be honest, but we'll never settle it here.

I'm going to email a scientist and find out. I'm going to start googling NASA scientists and ask one of them.

Then we will know definitively.

[Kirkland Laing]

Well I'm still not convinced to be honest, but we'll never settle it here.

I'm going to email a scientist and find out. I'm going to start googling NASA scientists and ask one of them.

Then we will know definitively.

What bit are you not convinced about?

[Kirkland Laing]

Well here's where objectivity comes in.
I feel the radiation emitted by the sun would increase. However, I believe it wouls simply double.
If the distance between the sun and earth doubled at the same time, would we not be exposed to an equivalent amount of sun radiation?

If the sun doubled in size you'd have twice the mass and consequently twice the amount of nuclear fusion going on. But the sun's gravity would also double, and it's the amount of gravity that determines the rate of fusion -- as fusion takes place and hydrogen is converted into helium, the pressure drops, gravity takes over and causes the sun to shrink. As the sun shrinks, pressure and heat begin to increase again and when the sun hits a certain temperature a round of fusion starts again. This contraction round of fusion releases vast amounts of energy compared to the expansion phase. Double the gravity and you'd speed up the rate of expansion/contraction and consequent increase in radiation exponentially above the level created by a double-size sun compared to if you had eg. two identical original size suns next to each other.

If the sun did double in size it would burn out a lot brighter and faster than the estimated four or five billion years it has left*. If it doubled every day or every second as per Bilbo's original contention, it'd soon collapse into a black hole, but not before giving the galaxy a hell of a firework display first.

*Judged by observation of some of the hundreds of billions of suns in our galaxy, itself one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. It's just lucky that the sun in our solar system is just the right size and distance from us for life on earth to have been possible. Even a relatively small difference in either would have left the earth far too warm or cold to support life.