Subject:
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Re: how big is the Isle of Mist?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle.org.cw
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Date:
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Mon, 29 Oct 2001 14:20:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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682 times
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In lugnet.castle.org.cw, Leonard Hoffman writes:
> > Bigger? If one were to grab baseplates and make tIoM in real life it'd be
> > over sixteen and a half kilometers across! Even a acre is pretty large,
> > clocking up 32 metres across. (For the series, a realm is around a kilometre
> > and a bit)(1)
> I know im not involved at all.. but doesn't this seem kinda excessive? i mean,
> with 40,000 baseplates per balladeer (or something like that), it could be
> possible to build an entire world, society, etc without really ever having to
> see anyone else.. plus, wouldn't this island then take years to fully explore,
> etc.? I guess maybe thats the point..
eep! Rule one, never do these calculations at night.
---here begins the discussion---
The island isn't only 8,000,000 baseplates big. I made a mistake in
calculating and underestimated by a factor of 512. The real size of the map
shown on the website is 4.2 thousand million baseplates(1). Yep. A lot.
For 1000 balladeers, that's still 2.4 million each (having taken out the
water surrounding the island).
In comparison, the United States is some 74.9 thousand million baseplates in
size. The Isle of mist is about 3 hundreths the size of America
On the other hand, it's bigger than the United Kingdom (by a factor of 1.25)
Big enough for individual fifedoms that never see each other?
From Pawel's reply to Adrian
"Based on Ben Fleskes' post about Minifig Scale, 2.85 studs makes a meter,
so each baseplate is approximately 11.23 meters."(2)
Given walking pace is about 4km an hour (around 2 miles an hour), to walk
across an acre is 20ish minutes walking, assuming nice terrain for walking on.
To walk across a realm would be most of a summer's day (more light for
walking, or if you like, walking under a nearly full moon). A trip across
the entire island would be a fortnight, if there was no mist and you could
find a good road straight across.
2.5mill baseplates is a big number, much larger than what anybody would have
in their collection but it's about one and a half realms on the map. As
pointed out, that's a good two days walk across. The isle is only 550km
across. I say only because, nowadays. 550km isn't a big number. For a less
transportationally gifted society it'd feel bigger. In the history of the
UK, a comparable sized island, there have been seperate societies co-existing.
So, in the end, yes, there will be room for 'lost' civilisations but not
enough room for a whole world and the isle won't take years to traverse when
the mist clears.
---here endeth the answer---
Having written and rewritten this answer, I still found it clashing with
personal intuition. Leonard has a point when he thinks that 40,000
baseplates is a lots each, It gets even worse when we find the proper answer
is more than 2mill baseplates each (assuming 1000 balladeers!). I think
there are three reasons for this discomfort. They are as follows.
1. The Map.
It's a lovely map. It looks fantstic. However I look at the zoomed in view
of a single realm and can't see it as 4096 baseplates across. Let alone some
16 million baseplates in area (wow, squares really make big numbers!). I
think Shiri came from this angle. Don't take this as a reason to change
anything about the map though.
2. Real life.
We know how big a baseplate is, we all own them. We'd probably be happy with
say, a hundred of the things. The thought of 40,000 of them is difficult,
and 2.4mill... well it's more difficult. I think Leonard was reacting to
this when he suggested that it was a big area. He's right it's a lot of
plates, but from a fig's point of view perhaps not. (Maybe it depends on the
fig! :)
3. The scale.
Scales are funny things. Especially in LEGO. A fig, according the scale is
about 1.75m tall, quite reasonable. However he's also nearly a metre across
and almost half a metre deep. Mearsure yourself to find out how odd this
would be. Moreover, we don't often build to this scale. We make buildings
smaller, skim details, abstract and sometimes assume more depth than shown.
For example. <set:6349> one of my favourite town sets. It looks fine, but
it's only 12x30 studs, or by scale 4.2 by 10.5 metres. Measure your house to
find out how odd this would be(3). It's not just town though, Hagrid's hut
is a cirle 12 studs across. Mark out a 4.2m diametre circle and imagine
living in it. Because most of us don't have huge collections, we build in
this abbreviated fashion (I like the style personally).
Conclusions from the reasons? I'd like to see a map of the UK superimposed
or otherwise at the same scale as the IoM map. Also, I've gotta get more LEGO!
James (who's taken too much of this thread already.)
(1)If I was American I might use the word billion for this number.
(2)http://news.lugnet.com/castle/org/cw/?n=1141
(3)A normal step is about a metre in length. Or if you prefer a metre is
3ish feet, a yard.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: how big is the Isle of Mist?
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| (...) Isn't that "billiard" in European languages? it is in hebrew... (...) Well maybe, but not in the current situation because people have limited places to land on. To answer Lenny's question, that *is* part (only part though) of the point of (...) (23 years ago, 29-Oct-01, to lugnet.castle.org.cw)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: how big is the Isle of Mist?
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| (...) i know im not involved at all.. but doesn't this seem kinda excessive? i mean, with 40,000 baseplates per balladeer (or something like that), it could be possible to build an entire world, society, etc without really ever having to see anyone (...) (23 years ago, 29-Oct-01, to lugnet.castle.org.cw)
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