Question

Super Turbo Mega Double Double Extra Credit: The Earth’s total diameter is 12700 kilometers, with the solidified, ocean-covered crust that is at its thickest 35 kilometers wide. These massive sizes and the difference between them may be hard to imagine, so scale-model globes of the Earth shrink our tremendous planet down to a more manageable size. If the Earth’s diameter was shrunken to the size of a basketball (24.2 centimeters across), how thick would the Earth’s crust be in this model Earth, in centimeters?

Answer 1

In this model, the Earth's crust would be 0.067 cm thick

Explanation:

The proportion between the Earth's diameter and the Earth's crust is 12700km/35km = 363

so

D/C = 363, where D is the diameter and C is the crust

If we solve for C having a diameter of 24.2 cm we obtain:

C = 24.2cm/363 = 0.067 cm