The night was hot, my friends. Sticky, too. The urge to turn on the air conditioner was immense, but the desire to sleep with the window open was even greater. My core temperature was well above its average level, but I was about to awake in a cold sweat.
“IPHONE SCREENS!” I screamed.
I couldn’t shake it. I haven’t been able to shake it for months. Years, even. “What if you took all the iPhone screens in the world and mashed them together? How big would this super screen be?!”
I had to know. All the restless, sweaty nights were getting to me. It was affecting my mood. My family. My work life. I wasn’t me.
Lacking even the most rudimentary math skills, and lacking even further the work ethic to look up how many iPhones have been sold over the years, I stewed in my juices indefinitely. Until…
Stupid Calculation Nº 1: Monophone
There it is. The answer to the question that’s been running my life since 2007:
Who among you haven’t wondered how many dried tears it would take to fill a salt shaker or how long it would take to sip an Olympic-sized pool through a straw? Doubtless, you’re similarly inclined to have contemplated the size of the screen that could be made if the displays were ripped out of every iPhone ever sold and combined into a single colossus. It’s likely still that you’ve imagined how it might appear looming above the Manhattan skyline. Wonder no more. Armed with pencil and paper, this exercise has been made with you in mind.
The eye-glazing calculations are laid out below for those who appreciate the dirty work but, skipping ahead, the Kubrick-inspired monophone would stretch 5,059 feet into the sky and have a base measuring 2,846 feet across (Central Park is 2,640 feet wide). Its surface area would take in 2.07 billion square inches. That’s 14.39 million square feet or 330.54 acres.
Thank you, Josh Orter of Stupid Calculations, whoever you are. Thank you for answering this question. And now to sleep – sound, restful sleep. It won’t be sound or restful for long, though. Each time a new iPhone is sold, the super screen gets bigger.
Stupid Calculation Nº 1- Monophone [Stupid Calculations via TUAW]