I wonder if 3d-printing technology is sufficiently precise that it could render a reasonably accurate scale model of the Earth -- complete with mountains, suboceanic canyons and spheroidal oblateness.
@woozle I just did a print with 0.06 mm layer height the other day, but of course that's not the resolution in all directions. There's also much more precise printers, albeit at that point we're talking expensive industrial machines
@woozle if I really wanted to print a scale model of the earth I'd probably split it into tiles and print those separately, standing on an edge to get smoother results. For a model I'd also go with the trick basically all topographic maps use and scale the elevation deltas up 5× or so
@noiob I guess that's part of what I'm wondering.
I guess it's time for some math...
mean diameter: 12742 km
highest mountain: 8.85 km
That means that the highest mountain (Everest) is ~1/1440th of the overall diameter.
...so if we printed Earth at 10 cm diameter, Everest would be a bump ~ .07 mm high...
mm, yeah, probably not very noticeable -- though if the printing were precise enough, I'm thinking maybe it would add some subtle texture?
(My brain has a lot of ideas, but only some of them are useful.)