1. First, let’s look at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. According to Wikipedia, each side of the Pentagon is 921 ft (281 m) long. A circle circumscribed on the outside of a pentagon whose sides are 921 ft long has a radius of 783 ft. So a circle that would circumscribe the Pentagon has a diameter of 1,566 ft.
r = (921 ft/2)/(sin 36 deg) = 783 ft.
Image credit: Wikipedia
2. There are several ways to get at the size of Apple’s spaceship. For the sake of a sanity check, I used Google Maps to calculate the distance from Wolfe Road to Tantau Ave. I printed out the map and used a ruler to extrapolate the distance. It came out to 2632 ft.
Credit: Google Maps
3. Next, I looked at the architectural drawing pointed to by Jeff Gamet’s “Cupertino Unveils Apple Spaceship Campus Details.” Digging down, I found this plot, again with Wolfe Road and Tantau Ave clearly marked.
I couldn’t find a notation on that drawing of the diameter of the circular building, but I did find scale marks at the bottom. Note that the distance between the outside red arrows is marked as 600 ft. By that scale, I measured the distance between Wolfe Road and Tantau Ave as 2653 ft.
Given that comforting sanity check, I measured the diameter of the Apple spaceship as 1615 ft, plus or minus a few ft., depending on where one places the ruler. That’s a radius of 807.5 ft.
So, if one could magically fly the future Apple spaceship to Arlington, VA and hover over the Pentagon, it would just slightly cover it. [See the UPDATE below.]
Here’s a rough overlay* showing the Apple HQ, the Pentagon, and top to bottom: a cruise ship, a U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier, what looks like a U.S. Navy Blimp, a WWII battleship, the Empire State Building and a supertanker.
This was a fun exercise and helps one put into perspective the size of the proposed new Apple headquarters.
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* Pentagon overlay graphic: wikipedia.
UPDATE: Some of our expert readers have dug into the docs and found the exact number for the Apple spaceship radius. It’s just under 761 ft. My estimate was high by 6%, and so the outer radius wouldn’t completely cover the Pentagon.