I guess you could count the atmosphere as part of earth, then things over 100km are in little enough of the atmosphere that it’s not really ‘touching’ it the same way. (For example not generating significant lift)
Comment on The End of an Era
Eheran@lemmy.world 4 weeks agoBut a plane is not “on earth”?
davidgro@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Eheran@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You could also count earth’s gravitational field, then nobody ever left it.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Extremely pedantically, sure. But under that level of pedantry, the whole metric falls apart anyway because there’s surely never or rarely been a point in human history where someone hasn’t jumped/fallen (let alone this having been measurable). What about “touching”; your feet are just repelling the ground via electromagnetism.
It’s really obvious what the metric is, and trying to pedant-proof it isn’t worth bloating it into a mouthful. We can just recognize what it obviously means, say “oh, neat”, and move on with our day.
Rolder@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Does it really count as being “on earth” if you’re standing on a floor instead of having your feet directly touch the dirt?
Tiresia@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
The last time everybody was touching a solid object connected to the Earth by touching other solid objects is probably around 15,000 years ago, when humans crossed over into the Americas. Before then, it would probably occur regularly that nearly all humans are asleep and the handful that are awake happen to all be touching the ground.