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Yesterday I posted the answer to accurately finding the radius of the Earth in meters – a smidge over 6 million meters. 

I know, you’re like “Dude, I knew that without calculating it, that’s like elementary knowledge.” 

Well, if you don’t have that knowledge memorized, you could easily figure it out in terms of miles.  And I believe that everyone should know how to approximate the radius of the Earth.  Yes, EVERYONE.  It’s actually real easy if you know some common elementary knowledge that everyone that does not live in a hole gains while being alive.

Already, here we go…approximating the radius of the Earth…

  • How many miles (approximately) is it from New York to Los Angeles?  Most people know it’s about 3,000 miles. 
  • How many hours apart (time zones) is New York TV (Eastern) and Los Angeles TV (Western)?  Any sports fan knows this is 3 hours – this is why there’s 1pm and 4pm NFL games.
  • This means there are 3,000 miles for every 3 hours here on Earth.  Could we simplify this???  Yes, about 1,000 miles for every 1 hour.
  • If there are 24 hours for the Earth to revolve once, I guess that there is about 24,000 miles around the Earth as well (this is known as the circumference of the Earth).
  • Something I believe each elementary student should know (a great experiment for kids) is to find the equation for circumference which is Circumference = pi times diameter.
  • Since pi is about 3 (even King Solomon in the Bible in 1900 BC knew that one), then 24,000 = 3 times diameter.
  • I’m sure you can divide 24 by 3 in your head which is 8.  Therefore the diameter of the Earth is about 8,000 miles.
  • If the diameter of the Earth is twice the radius.  Then 8,000 miles divided by 2 is about 4,000 miles.
  • Therefore by simple logic…The Radius of the Earth is about 4,000 miles (it’s exactly 3,959 miles).

Radius of the Earth…somthing everyone should know, or logically be able to figure out.