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| Across the universe on a butter mountain | Across the universe on a butter mountain |
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| Tony Robinson asks to what depth 40 trillion trillion trillion packs of butter would cover a country the size of Wales (Letters, 29 June). In scientific notation this is 40x1036 packs. Wales is about 2x1010 square metres. A pack of butter measured 95x63x41mm, so 2x1010÷6x10–3 or 3.4x1012 packs would cover the surface. The height of 40x1036 packs stacked on top of each other comes to 40x1036÷3.4x1012 x 0.041 metres, or 4.8x1023 metres. The sun is only 1.5x1011 metres away, but Saturn is a little farther at 1.4x1012 metres from the sun, while Pluto is at 5.9x1012 metres. Andromeda is a mere 2.4x1022 metres away. You could therefore, if you arranged the packs as steps, climb this “butter mountain” and reach all of the planets in the solar system, then go on to Andromeda, but you’d have to do it at night or the stairway to the solar system would swing past the sun and melt.Dr John EllisTavistock, Devon | Tony Robinson asks to what depth 40 trillion trillion trillion packs of butter would cover a country the size of Wales (Letters, 29 June). In scientific notation this is 40x1036 packs. Wales is about 2x1010 square metres. A pack of butter measured 95x63x41mm, so 2x1010÷6x10–3 or 3.4x1012 packs would cover the surface. The height of 40x1036 packs stacked on top of each other comes to 40x1036÷3.4x1012 x 0.041 metres, or 4.8x1023 metres. The sun is only 1.5x1011 metres away, but Saturn is a little farther at 1.4x1012 metres from the sun, while Pluto is at 5.9x1012 metres. Andromeda is a mere 2.4x1022 metres away. You could therefore, if you arranged the packs as steps, climb this “butter mountain” and reach all of the planets in the solar system, then go on to Andromeda, but you’d have to do it at night or the stairway to the solar system would swing past the sun and melt.Dr John EllisTavistock, Devon |
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