Rope around the earth puzzle 1702.
Rope around the earth puzzle.
This gem from 1702 shows how simple intuition may fail us.
Update on the rope around the earth puzzle in the light of the recently observed gravitational waves.
The string is now rearranged so that it is at a uniform height above the equator.
Rope around the earth puzzle imagine a rope that fits snugly all the way around the earth like a ring on a person s finger.
If you put 1 metre high sticks right around the equator and lay the rope on.
Imagine you re given a rope that tightly encircles the equator of a basketball.
From there it s not hard to believe that adding 3 feet to a rope around the actual earth would raise it almost 6 inches.
Suppose allistair then comes.
In the case of our string around the earth puzzle the radius is being increased by 15cm so we need to know that as a fraction of the original radius.
This string is cut and a piece 1 metre 3 ft 3 in in length is added in.
Assume he has just the right length that makes this work without any slack.
Imagine a rope that runs completely around the earth s equator flat against the ground assume the earth is a perfect sphere without any mountains or valleys.
Suppose poindexter takes a very long rope and wraps it around the equator of the earth.
Imagine a rope tied around the earth s equator like a ring on a person s finger.
Now imagine lifting off this very long rope don t ask me how cutting it somewhere so as to stitch into it exactly one meter of extra rope.
String girdling earth is a mathematical puzzle with a counterintuitive solution.
Student answer form blackline master rope around the world you have a piece of rope that just fits around the earth.
The rope around the earth puzzle.
In a common version of this puzzle string is wrapped around the equator of a perfectly spherical earth.