Just a quick thought – but I am tired, so I could be not thinking clearly.

Maybe that is a reflection of the obesity epidemic!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

That’s how sit seems to work with me, anyway.

Hilarious!

Well, I am a bit over 54 years, by almost 4 months, but given the annual measurements, I think that difference would be statistically meaningless.

Also note that I didn’t say 54 hair widths of increase or decrease but change. So it could have gone up or down in any given year and might be exactly the same today as my birthday.

I think it is true that the radius could be different at different points in the earth, say, from the top of Mt Everest down as compared to the Top of the Dead Sea down… so your budding genii ask good questions!

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

One person wondered how we know that this hair width is not just a function of the wind blowing a particularly thick coating of dust on the date of measurement.

Someone pointed out that since the earth is not perfectly spherical, it cannot be guaranteed that diameter = 2 * radius. Others questioned that assertion.

There are questions of rounding/precision, and how appropriate it was for you to extrapolate without knowing how precise the 0.004 measurement was.

My 11 year old raised the question of whether the rate has been consistent over 54 years, which gave me the opportunity to point out that you had fallen into the trap of uniformitarianism (which underpins evolution, though I didn’t take it that far).

Also, we want to know if you are precisely 54 years, or if we should factor in a partial year as we try to calculate the diametrical change.

There are questions over whether the annual change is an increase or decrease, whether it is constant, whether it might actually be an exponential change, whether it might increase one year and decrease the next in an oscillating pattern while averaging out to 0.004 per year, etc.

I was able to draw two conclusions from the discussion. First, we can’t answer your question about the diameter, and second, our family has a PROBLEM.

Undoubtedly someone will come along to refute even this! The universe is an amazing place.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3