ret*d urban myths

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We all 'know' the following:" the Great Wall of China is only man made object visible from the Moon."

The question is- why does everyone believe such a ret*d notion?

The statement contains two kinds of stupid.
First- that you can see the Great Wall of China from the Moon.
Second- that the great wall is more visible than any other manmade object.

Why would either of those statements be true?
Granted - if you took all of the matter contained by the great wall and gathered it into one pile- it might well be the most visible rockpile ever assembled by man.

But its a wall- fifty feet high- and its never more than 30 feet wide. It may be 3000 miles long- but its only 20 to 30 teet wide.

A human hair thats six feet long is just as hard to see from a hundred feet away a strand thats only inches long.

Its the thickness not the length that counts.

So essentially the great wall of china is no more visible than every damned three lane highway on planet earth.

So if it were indeed "visible from the moon" then it could NOT be the ONLY manmade object visible on the moon because all of the countless three-and-four lane highways on earth would also have to be as visible, or more so. And- alot of other manmade objects would be more visible- notably canals- like China's Grand Canal, and the Panama, and Suez Canals.

Further- How could you see a thirty foot wide wall from the moon anyway? That would be the equivalent of seeing a human hair from two miles away.

Optical experts say that the smallest "object" on the Earth's surface that could be resolved by the human eye of an observer standing on the moon would be a disk "seventy miles in diameter".

In other words: if you forged a big black iron manhole cover wide enough to squash half of the state of Maryland it would look like the period at the end of this sentence when viewed from the Moon's surface.
The Great Wall of China would look like a piece of dental floss made to be used by a virus.

Oh- that have asked the astronauts- no -none of them could see the Great Wall from the Moon.

So the question is: What line of reasoning would lead anyone think that "the Great Wall of China is the only manmade object visible from the Moon." ?

According to snopes.com, the earliest citing of the claim is found in Second Book of Marvels, the Orient, a book published in 1938, although the author may not have been the originator of the legend.

Of course, this is before there was any way to empirically prove the claim wrong, and anyway it is unusual for most people to take time to attempt to verify 'facts' they have heard. It sounds pretty cool, so it is no wonder it would be repeated.

In truth, the most prominently visible man made feature from space is perhaps what's left of the Aral Sea...

when people talk about such stupid myths, compare them to stuff that exists.

w the chinese wall, i ask people how wide it is. around 4-5 metres, no?

well, my house is wider, and is invisible from space.
then i tell them that from the MOON our whole country is rather tiny, and people seem to realize the impossibility of such a myth, unless theyre total boneheads, in which case you shouldnt be interacting with them in the first place.

i also like "if every chinese jumps simultaneously, the world will come off its orbit" yeah, cus a lump og chinese people outdo the total energy blast of the KT-meteor, well all meteors and nukes we have ever detonated. damn those chinese are hardcore!

I don't claim that the wall is visible from as far away as the moon, but while the width of the wall is important in determining its visibility from above, the height of the wall is also important if it's being viewed from any direction except for directly from the top down. Shadows cast by the sun may also increase its detectability.

thats nonsense. the shadow will only cast another 4-5 metres. my local mall is wider, and is invisible from space.

here's a trick, try to find the wall on google earth, only by spotting it w the naked eye.

I didn't claim that the wall would be visible from space, only that the the wall's height would increase its visibility and detectability if looking at it from any angle other than directly above it.

uh... nobody's questioning the general visibility of the wall. its humongous. you can see it when your right next to it, and you can probably spot it kilometres away, if you got a free line of sight, and squint your eyes.
the question was wether or not you can see it from space, and - you cant. no matter the angle.

The original author said

I was only pointing out that the height of the wall would make this untrue. Highways have relatively little height, so unless viewed from directly above, an object that is both tall and wide will be visible from further away than an object that is just wide.

I am not arguing and never did argue that the wall was visible from space.

many elevated highways dwarf the chinese wall, both in width and height. you made a strange argument simply for the sake of dissagreeing. you cant even truly make out entire mountain ranges, when your high up enough, shadows or not.
the thread talked about the visibility from space, not the general visibility of a large object.

I did not make an argument for the sake of disagreeing.

I post when I think something should be pointed out, and haven't posted often.

I was only attempting to point out that the reasoning behind that one sentence seemed flawed. I did not disagree with the premise that the Great Wall of China is not easily visible from space. I am sorry if I posted something you had already realized.

Please don't attempt to guess my intentions and please don't assume that my intention was to "[make] a strange argument simply for the sake of dissagreeing".

its not visible _at ALL_
anyway, fine, im backing off :b

I don't believe that a human would be able to see it without equipment but with a telescope or imaging equipment it would be visible.

I am not trying to be disagreeable.

okay, there's
"from space" and theres "from the moon"

from the moon, the earth looks like a grape. good luck spotting even europe under the rainclouds.

from SPACE the wall is still invisible, since even mountain ranges look shrinked from there, with a telescope, well, i guess. hubble looks pretty far away you'd still need a good telescope tho, a binocular wouldnt be enough.

i bet this rumor is spread by the chinese.
one chinese guy told me china has a population of 12 billion. he was 20 years old, and thought so all his life.
i told him the earth population was 6 billion. he nodded eagerly.
and i asked, if the earth has 6 billion - all in all - then china has - on its own - 12 billion? he nodded eagerly "yes yes!"
i told him this is impossible, and that 1,2 billion is impressive enough, and one 6th of the earth. "nono! 12!" he said.

I always thought the notions was in relation to space, not the moon. And I'm sure telescopes are allowed. However, if the great wall is easier to spot than say New York City, well, I doubt it.

Well, the moon is in space. In fact, quite a lot of things are in space. I for one am highly skeptical of the claim that you could make out any of earth's finer features from the Kuiper Belt.