this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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[–] mr_account@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If it's 1:1 ratio? The sun

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

would be interesting to see if that much cardboard had a noticeable gravitational field.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

https://www.amazon.com/White-Corrugated-Paper-Sheet-Pack/dp/B08D2GT19P

A 10 pack of "20 x 30 x 0.16 inches;" cardboard weighs "6.4 Pounds".

10x30x10 is 6,000 square inches, or ~3.87 square meters. 6.4 lbs is 2.9 kg. So figure ~0.75 kg per square meter of corrugated cardboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

Its diameter is about 1,391,400 km (864,600 mi), 109 times that of Earth.

Area is r² times pi.

$ maxima
(%i1) float((1391400*1000/2)^2*%pi);
(%o1)                        1.520526100532553E18

So that's an area of about 1.52×10¹⁸ m² and a mass of about 1.14×10¹⁸ kg for the cardboard cutout.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

Mass: 5.972168×10²⁴ kg

Earth has about five million times as much mass, so the Sun cutout would have about a fifth of a millionth Earth's gravitational pull.

EDIT: In the grand spirit of what-if.xkcd.com I think it behooves us to take a humorously dark scientific look at this.

A larger problem would be 1.14×10¹⁸ kg of cardboard suddenly falling onto Earth's surface. Aside from any effects from it, like, directly impacting, you've just dumped 1.14×10¹⁸ kg of wood pulp onto Earth. Aside from any unpleasant effects from chemical additives, or blotting out the Sun's light to plants and causing biological collapse, I imagine that there could be some other unpleasant effects:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×10¹⁸ kg,

Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, and by volume about 20% oxygen, so we'll back-of-the-napkin it and say that about 20% of the mass is oxygen. So about 1×10¹⁸ kg of oxygen, fairly close to the mass of the cardboard cutout.

That cardboard is presumably flammable.

So if this vast expanse of cardboard ignites


like, from heat produced by falling through Earth's atmosphere, falling on any open flame in the world, or whatever, but seems like a pretty safe bet that something will touch it off


I'd assume that a considerable portion of Earth's oxygen supply would be converted to water and carbon dioxide in the resulting combustion reaction. Even aside from the global wildfire itself, that seems like it'd be pretty bad news for humans.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 6 points 1 week ago

seems like it'd be pretty bad news for humans

I'll take 2

[–] Nikls94@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Soooo that cardboard cutout has about the weight of Phobos, a moon of Mars…

And since it’s as big as the sun, wouldn’t the moon break through it?

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

I have found the King!

[–] mr_account@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

The Sun's radius is ~696,000,000 meters, so the surface area of a perfectly circular cutout would be 1.5218e18 square meters. An article I found says that cardboard used for packing is about 0.35-0.4 kg per square meter, so taking an average of 0.375kg/m^2 gives a total of 5.7069e17kg. This is about the same mass as 40% of all water on Earth.

[–] a_new_sad_me@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Came here to say that, thank you.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Am I the only normal person in these comments?

I only want a life-size cutout of Danny Devito, and it's only £40!

https://amzn.eu/d/frGNlbr

[–] EpeeGnome@lemm.ee 10 points 1 week ago

(I may mis-recall all the details because this was some years back.) There was girl who took a Danny Devito cutout as her "date" to highschool prom and posted the professional prom photo online, and the story got big enough that he heard about it. He was so amused by it that he brought a custom made cardboard cutout of her from the prom picture to the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia set to take a photo with.

[–] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I have the mini version of this (about 2ft) and it is my favourite. When I had more space, he was placed at my doorway to greet me when I'd come home.

[–] klu9@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

OMG the Frequently Bought Together section!

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would not be Londo from Babylon 5. My husband had a life size cardboard of him when we first started dating, and it always scared me.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's awesome; I'd get along great I'm sure. Is your husband single?

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He says no, cause if he said yes he'd be very single very quick!

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Dang. Well, I shot my shot!

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Elon musk holding a piece of paper with his bank credentials and crypto wallet access keys written on it

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The guy who made the cutout would have already transferred the funds.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

This is the way

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Godzilla. People would freak the fuck out!

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

No!!!! I came here to say that!!! GIVE ME BACK MY GODZILLA CUTOUT

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 week ago

The Death Star. Not only would it be cool and intimidating, but I think it could be leveraged to reduce global warming by shading the world for about 12 minutes every day. (I attempted math to come up with 12 minutes. I wouldn't trust that figure, but it's all hypothetical anyway so the amount of time really doesn't matter.)

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 7 points 1 week ago

Map of the universe

[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Executor class star dreadnought

[–] superfes@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Me, looking disappointed, set myself there in the office, looking disappointedly at myself all day.

[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's pretty awesome. I like the racing stripes and spiderman stickers you have on the headboard

[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Excuse me, I'm a woman, I have disney princesses on my headboard

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Pfft, girls.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

True story time.

I used to work in public health. One time I was assigned to inspect one of the local men's shelters. There were 'pods' where a dozen men slept together in one room. One guy had a full size cutout figure of Joanna Lumley as Patsy from 'AbFab.' She is in all white, holding a cigarette and a bottle of Stoli. My man was homeless, but he had his priorities straight.

[–] Quazatron@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

evangelion angel

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

The upcoming winning lotto numbers

[–] ApatheticCactus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

The Andromeda Galaxy.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Definitely either the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog version of Sonic and Tails.

[–] BaumGeist@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

My (future) wife. I would hide it away and never let anyone know or see, but I would at least know who to look for when dating, and it would give me unparalleled confidence in any future relationship.

[–] TheV2@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago