logoalt Hacker News

eigenspaceyesterday at 4:27 PM2 repliesview on HN

Dietary need scales with volume, whereas incident sunlight would scale with surface area.

Assuming a spherical cow and a spherical human, the calories needed would scale with the radius cubed, whereas the calories gained from sunlight would scale with the radius squared. So while I agree this wouldn't be very many calories, even if you sat under the sun all day, I think the 4% figure is probably quite pessimistic.


Replies

KnuthIsGodyesterday at 9:56 PM

Marvelous...

Finally a good reason to assume a spherical cow!

pfdietzyesterday at 5:29 PM

The square cube law pops up all over the place, my favorite being in fusion reactors, where it is a two edged sword.