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picoParsec:   What on Earth?   Who on Earth?   Exit Strategy!   ( page-foot )

What on earth is a picoparsec?

It’s a millionth of a millionth (10^-12) of a parsec,
which is distinctly not on earth:
it’s a unit used for the measurement of astronomical distances,
roughly equal to 3.26 light years.

If that doesn’t help, then just accept that a parsec
is a staggeringly gigantic distance:
roughly 30.857 × 10¹² km (or 19.174 × 10¹² statute miles)!
Ten to the twelfth power (10¹²) means a million million (a trillion),
so the best part of 31 trillion km or just over 19 trillion miles.
Or, in other words, an absolutely enormous number of ...

Just how large is a trillion? Well, let’s put it in the perspective
of something with which we can all identify, namely money.
If you were to go back to the founding of Rome
(by Romulus and Remus in approximately 753 BC)
and plunk down one million dollars ($1,000,000.⁰⁰) per day,
– that’s $1M every single day from then until now –
you would not have reached a trillion dollars until late in 1984!
Yes, a trillion truly is a gigantic quantity of anything.

So a picoparsec turns out to be 30.857 km (or 19.174 statute miles),
which can be considered a gentle day’s journey when afoot.

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So who or what is “picoParsec” ?

picoParsec is the nom du net of Jas A. Mogg, which is itself a nom de plume for
the self-styled “Starving Artist ” of the Starving Artist’s Garratt.
(And, yes, the Starving Artist does know how to spell: the Garratt is probably not
what you think it is, unless you happen to be a steam railway locomotive buff!)

The Garratt in question is not a misspelling of the classic artist’s garret
(in the sense of a shabby attic in a decaying erstwhile mansion), but,
rather, reflects the ownership of an articulated Beyer-Garratt steam
railway locomotive, colloquially known as a Garratt.

The choice of picoParsec as a sobriquet reflects two aspects of his character: the alliteration reflects his love of language, and the astronomical science reflects his fundamental and inextinguishable nerdiness.

You don’t have to know who Jas A. Mogg is in real life to enjoy
what this family of web sites has to offer – or not, as your taste dictates.

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Now, what would you like to do?

Explore the tangled and idiosyncratic web of the Starving Artist’s Garratt;

Visit the Starving Artist’s Garratt professional services website;

Catch up on Farts in a Bathysphere, the BLOG of the Starving Artist’s Garratt;

Mosey on over to the personal world of the Starving Artist himself;

or exit to somewhere with far vaster scope;
(and just possibly a little more interesting!)

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