Mass and Radius of the Earth

Monica He 30 sept 2011

Abstract Using only some simple geometries and obvious facts about the rotation of the earth, we were able to determine an experimental radius of the earth from timing the setting of the sun at slightly dierent elevations at Santa Monica beach. Then, with our street-ghting maths skillz we estimated the mass of the Earth.

Introduction
Professor Johnson challenged our Ay20 class to do what initially seemed impossible - to measure the radius of the earth, with nothing but a stopwatch and a view of a sunset over the ocean. With many heads thinking about this, we decided that the easiest way would be to compare the change in the time we saw a certain event occur, i.e. the setting of the sun. The equations we wanted were better explicated with a picture, but herein are the basics. If we knew this t between a event and the height between your measurements, you can nd the angle to the tangent point/sunset point. From this you can relate the angle to the sides of a giant triangle, with one point at you, on at the tangent point, and one at the center the earth. t = 24hrs 2 cos () = rearth (rearth + h) (1) (2)

There would a larger error associated with a smaller height displacement, so as a class we were able to try increase the distance between the groups. We set up four groups; one, as level to the ocean as was reasonable, which would signal the other groups when they saw the edge of the sun slip over the edge the rst time and the second time, when sunset ended. They were essential for the measurements of everyone else. Then there was a group on top of the lifeguard house, with a h 2m. We decided to split up the group on the pier (h 4.5m), with Daniel and Eric along the line of sight of the rst group at sea level, and myself at approximately the same distance from the sunset but

angularly displaced a bit (I was at around the same distance from the beach as the rst group). Through bad communication I was unable to get the fact that I was supposed to measure two sets of times to better account for any error in measurment, the time those at sea level saw the start of the sunset and the time till when I saw that same eect, and the time that those at sea level saw the end of the sunset (the disk slipping totally under the horizon) and the time till the same event at my elevation. As such, I only got the second measurement.

Data analysis
My t = 2 : 53.63mins 2 : 44.27mins = 9.36s. The height h 4.5m. Then from (1) we conclude 1hr 9.36s = 0.000680678408rad = 0.039deg 24hrs 3600s From manipulating (2), we have = 2 rearth = h cos () = 19424886m 1 cos () (3)

(4)

i.e., we have a radius of reath = 19, 425km, which is three times the actual R = 6, 378.1km. This is within an order of magnitude! :) Ha. There are no uncertainties as I do not know the other groups numbers and times. / 1/ Lets say, to measure the mass of the earth by our radius, we can assume g that the average density of the earth is larger than wather (1 cm3 ) but less than, say, around four times that density (water is not that compressible, at least in g my mind). Then say earth 3 cm3 , so the mass of the earth is
3 m = 4rearth = 2.76 1029 g = 2.76 1026 kg

(5)

The real value is M = 5.97 1022 kg. I overestimated by 4623 times, even with my very conservative density of the earth. This may be due to the too large calculated radius the r3 value will add signicantly. The actual earth g 5.5 cm3 .

Epilogue
My radius measurement was about on, three times larer, so this was reasonable in our order-of-magnitude approximations. However, the systemic error this imparted to my mass estimation was devastating.

Acknowledgements
Thank yous are extended especially to Daniel Lo and Eric Mukherjee, my piertop team. My thanks also to the entire team at sea level, including David, John, 2

and a few others! Also again to Daniel for keeping my data set and reminding me of it later. Thanks to Cassi for driving me back, and Professor Johnson for driving me there and proposing the beach in the rst place.