On A Lighter Note, Happy Birthday to Me

I wrote this post on my birthday, February 22, around the supper hour. I meant to publish it later that night, but never did do so. The following morning my world was turned upside down. So here, now, is my February 22 birthday post, finally.

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February 22, 2008 – I awoke today to discover that I have travelled around our little star, fondly referred to as “the Sun”, a sum total of 42 times. I may have just started my 43rd lap, or I may just be finishing up my 42nd. I can’t say for sure.

According to PhysicalGeography.net, the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is elliptical. I had forgotten this. (Interestingly, they refer to “the Earth”, rather than “Earth”. I’ve always used the latter, not the former.) At any rate, PhysicalGeography.net also notes that the average distance of THE Earth from the Sun over a one-year period is approximately 149,600,000 km. They don’t specify whether this is from the central core of the Earth, or from the surface, but since the Earth’s diameter is a mere 12,756 km (from About.com), I think we’d be quibbling to get more specific.

Ignoring for the moment that the Earth’s orbit is elliptical, and instead assuming a circular orbit, and using our simple formula for circumference (C) of a circle, as related to diameter (D) and radius (R) we see that:

C (Earth’s orbit) = Pi x D
C (Earth’s orbit) = Pi x (R x 2)

And substituting for R we find that:

C (Earth’s orbit) = Pi x (149,600,000 km x 2)
C (Earth’s orbit) = Pi x 299,200,000 km
C (Earth’s orbit) = 939,964,521 km

Since I’ve completed this crazy journey approximately 42 times, that puts a healthy 39,478,509,922 km under my belt! Not bad.

That pales in comparison to the average 10,000 km per year that I tend to drive. And of course we have not accounted for the Earth’s rotation. Perhaps next year.

I also surfed over to the BBC’s On This Day page. On February 22, in 1991 Bush Sr. gave “Iraq until 17:00 GMT tomorrow to pull out of Kuwait”, and in 1997 Dolly the sheep was cloned.

In February 1966, the Soviet space program landed a probe on the Moon and the US state of Hawaii hosted a US-Vietnamese summit.

Heading over to the Age Gauge, which is very USA-centric, and which gave a strange error and may not be working all that accurately any more, I was:
- 17 years old when Apple introduced the Macintosh
- 13 years old during the time of the Iran hostage crisis – Way to go Ken Taylor and team!
- 3 years old when the Americans landed on the Moon