[FRIAM] The comparative thickness of the tropospheree

Marcus Daniels marcus at snoutfarm.com
Sun Apr 27 23:36:11 EDT 2025


I wonder if the George makers 1) realized that people have an affinity to iffy analogies and they should give the people what they want, or 2) the LLM was prone to generating them so they just made it a feature?

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2025 8:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] The comparative thickness of the tropospheree

 

George and I were looking for intuition pumps to help a reader imagine how very thin the troposphere is.   Here is what we came up with:

 


Ordered by Type: Too Thin → Best Match → Too Thick


 


Material / Object

Relative Thickness

Too Thin or Too Thick?

Notes


Weather balloon skin (fully inflated)

~280× too thin

Way too thin

Soap-film fragile


Plastic wrap (1 layer)

~7× too thin

Too thin

Would need ~7 layers


Eyeball tear film

~4× too thin

Slightly too thin

Very close, poetic comparison


Party balloon skin (inflated)

~3× too thin

Slightly too thin

Best easy everyday match


Troposphere
Apple peel

~14× too thick

Too thick

Best among fruits


Basketball skin

~16× too thick

Too thick

Similar to soccer ball


Soccer ball skin

~17× too thick

Too thick

Very close to basketball


Baseball leather skin

~25× too thick

Too thick

Heavier and thicker still


Tennis ball felt+skin

~37× too thick

Too thick

Very thick and fuzzy


Navel Orange peel

~70× too thick

Way too thick

Thickest skin we've discussed

 

 


-- 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology

Clark University

nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson

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