Hacker News Reader

Comment by abtinf | Hacker News Reader

If you are ever in the Seattle area, I highly recommend the Boeing factory tour. It's sort of like visiting the Grand Canyon - the scale of the structure is so massive that it's a bit hard for the brain to process what it sees.

View on HN

When I saw their buildings I literally thought "I didn't know doors could be this big".

I have done that tour and one of my favorite parts was the view from the balcony of a three story office building inside.

Yes, the inside views were what captivated me as well. From the outside, I didn't think the buildings looked as massive as the claims I'd read. But as soon as I was inside, I realized that my mind just wasn't equipped to judge the size of the building from the outside.

I'm the wrong side of the ocean to pop in, but now I'm picturing it as Magrathea from hitchhikers.

... where you have this hugh lift running you through the planet building hall. Had immediately the same idea.

My best bit of the tour was the explanation that if the climate control system ever goes down, the building's large enough to develop its own weather systems, including potentially clouds and rain.

Hmm, I recall the tour differently - they said the building has no hvac, instead they just open/close the doors.

It's been decades, so I'm probably remembering it wrong.

Point is: building's big.

That's really interesting to hear and makes me want to visit, because that was my reaction when seeing the Grand Canyon the first time. My brain took a little bit to accept what it was seeing.

You may be stretching the definition of sort of. The Boeing factory, while indeed large at 13.38 million cubic meters, is sort of smaller than the Grand Canyon at 4.98 trillion cubic meters. This is like saying that the number 1 is sort of close to the number 372,457 (number of Boeing factories that fit in the Grand Canyon). Tongue-firmly-in-cheek I'm definitely going to go check out the Boeing tour now.

You are of course right, the Grand Canyon is vastly larger. The effect on my brain was still the same. I think maybe what happens is that some object break our ability to relate a thing back to human dimensions.

I don't get the same effect when looking at a skyscraper; maybe that's because each floor is usually visibly marked, so it can be related back to the self.

If most of the numbers you encounter yer day-to-day are on the order of 0.00005 (the relative volume of my house), then perhaps 1 would seem as unrealistically massive as 372,457!

With all due respect, I think you have sort of overinterpreted the point he was trying to make.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com