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9 comments

[–] smallpond 2 points (+2|-0)

Whatever. I think the minimum separation distance is at least an equally sensible definition of 'closeness'. No planet comes closer to Earth than Venus.

[–] CDanger 2 points (+2|-0)

You're right, but then that wouldn't make for a very good video. He went a little overboard on the "Mercury is closest to all planets" angle in my opinion though and should have talked about the different definitions and how the results vary, e.g.

  • Closest on average
  • Minimum distance
  • Maximum distance

Because some planets like Pluto have highly elliptical orbits, the standard textbook order of the planets doesn't guarantee a meaningful result since sometimes Neptune is further from the Sun than Pluto.

[–] smallpond 1 points (+1|-0)

Yeah, there's an infinite number of definitions of representative 'closeness' in a situation like this. I have a soft-spot for the harmonic mean:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_mean