By “smoothing out” I mean flattening all mountains and filling all trenches so that the entire earth has exactly the same radius everwhere. Water naturally spreads out equally on such a surface, so how high would the water level be?

  • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    We’ve got three answers so far:

    2 miles - by @CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world

    0.43 miles - by @LodeMike@lemmy.today

    2.7 kilometers - by @erusuoyera@sh.itjust.works

    These are highly different answers. Who’s correct?

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      As @huquad@lemmy.ml pointed out, @LodeMike@lemmy.today had an error in their calculation (radius squared instead of cubed). Their corrected result, 1.7 mi also equals 2.7 km (rounding to 3 km is a bit rough).

      • CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        My answer is also based on some pretty rounded figures and I’d had a few drinks before doing that math.

        2 miles is roughly 3.2km. Honestly, the fact that I’m even within the same order of magnitude as the other answers is surprising.