For over 70 years Montana has bragged on state stationery, on car tags and in advertising campaigns that it has the largest sky in the world. Not so, say scientists working in Idaho and Wyoming. They have determined that, contrary to Montana's claims, the sky in Montana is no bigger than the sky anywhere else.
David R. Gamble and Chester Coontz, both professors of Meteorology at Idaho State College, and Wayne Fields, a geologist at Wyoming Polytechnic Institute have concluded that while large, the sky in Montana is not appreciably larger than the sky in adjacent states.
Using weather balloons and long tape measures the three scientists mapped the skies, and discovered that as seen from the Earth the sky everywhere is about twenty five feet wide and twenty five feet long. "If you hold the tape measure up," said Dr. Gamble, "and put the end down at the horizon, and then pull the tape measure all the way out and put it at the other horizon, you get 25 feet every time. It's uncanny."
Though their results have not been verified by other scientists, the three do not seem concerned that their research will prove inaccurate. "We measured, we documented. It's all here. Twenty five feet, it is," Said Dr. Coontz with a smile.
