kengr

Stumbled across this entry on an old tumblr...
http://thevitaes.tumblr.com/post/2430886888

(TLDR: person claims that if Earth's orbit as bigger or smaller by 10 feet we'd all roast or freeze.)

Besides being an example of extreme attitude for getting called out on posting wrong info, it's an example of *extreme* innumeracy.

The person doing the correction pointed out the variation in the distance to the sun due to Earth's orbit being elliptical. Which is correct.

But it's *far* worse than that.

Consider someone on the equator. At noon they are roughly 4000 miles closer to the sun than they are at sunrise or sunset.

Think that shows how stupid they are? Nope. It's still worse.

If you go up a very small hill you are dozens of feet closer to the sun than you are at the foot of the hill.

So, essentially, this person did not do the most *trivial* analysis of the so-called fact they heard from someone before posting it to the web for all to see.