If you scaled objects physically by cost relative to a reference object, you could make some interesting graphics. For eg if the object is an iPhone ($1000, 6”), a $20,000 sedan would be about 12’ which is about right. So average value/unit volume is about the same.
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An apple would be nearly microscopic on an iPhone dollar scale. If it’s 50c/apple it would be about 75 microns. About the width of a human hair.
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I’d like to make a dollar value distorted diorama
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You could distort individual object parts this way based on cost contribution. For a car the engine and compute would be very big.
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I bet cost scales roughly as square of average dimension. Most cost in engineered things is in the design of 2d complexity. Material cost is a function of volume but many things are hollow. Small things densely packed with electronics might be ^2.5.
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I can’t believe someone at Santa Fe or somewhere hasn’t studied this
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Find that a lot of industrial equipment fits a similar model.
Complexity, optics, computing, high-speed motion components… irrelevant. Just kilos.
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Otoh… a mining tire can be $100,000… a car tire $150 say. It’s not 1000x smaller, more like 10x. So volume effects distort low volume industrial things
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No, the average cost per unit length is about the same. The volume of a Toyota Corolla's cabin alone is about 13 cubic feet, which is about $4 million of iPhone 12s: google.com/search?q=13+cu
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I was really hoping I'd scroll down to a set of interesting and insightful graphics...
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