Back in the days of early television in Australia, the ‘must watch’ show on every Sunday night, was Walt Disney’s, Disneyland. The theme song came from the 1940’s film, Pinocchio, and started … “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are …” Truer words were never written. Not only doesn’t it make a difference who you are, it doesn’t make a difference where you are in the world or what you are wishing for! Your wish will NEVER be answered and here’s why.
The closest star to Earth ISN’T Alpha Centauri as many would have you think. This star is 4.3 light years from Earth. The CLOSEST star is in fact, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.21 light years from Earth. CHECK HERE
Now, a light year is the distance that light can travel in a year at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. As there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year, this calculates to the astronomical figure of 5,865,696,000,000 miles.
We established above, that the closest star is 4.21 light years away, so the distance between you and that star is in the close vicinity of around 24,694,580,200,000 miles.
The speed that sound travels at, is roughly 750 miles per hour. (This speed differs dependent on temperature, etc., so I took a mean average for this exercise.)
So, if we now take the distance in miles and divide it by the speed of sound, we come up with how long it will take, in hours, for a sound to get from you to the star. My calculator shows the answer to be …
32,926,106,900 hours, or …
1,371,921,120 days, or …
3,758,688 years.
That’s right, it will take nearly 4 MILLION YEARS for your wish to reach the closest star!
If you have gone outside anytime during your lifetime and wished on a star, it hasn’t reached it yet. Perhaps that would explain why you wish hasn’t been granted. Oh, if you didn’t manage to cast your wish in the direction of Proxima Centauri, it’s going to take a little longer than calculated above.
Knowing the above, if you still want to go outside and wish upon a star, be my guest. You classify as being a hopeless romantic.
P.S. Look for me when you are out there. I cast my wishes to the stars, EVERY night.
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Contributor's Note
I sat at the computer and researched the above and did all of the calculations using the Google calculator. If you find this anywhere else on the Internet, it is purely a coincidence. :o)
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