Rope around the earth
Imagine that the earth is a perfect sphere with a radius of 6371000 meters and there is a rope tightly wrapped around the equator. With one line of MATLAB code determine how much the rope will be lifted above the surface if you cut it and insert a 1 meter segment of rope into it (and then expand the whole rope back into a circle again, of course).
3 Comments
Sign in to participate
Fascinating thought experiment amazing how adding just 1 meter to a rope around the Earth can lift it uniformly! Math never stops surprising. Speaking of unexpected issues, if you're running into problems with your favorite apps, here's a helpful guide on it which really work for me.
Since the length of the rope is 2πr meters, increasing it is equivalent to increasing the radius by 1/(2π) meters - and that's how much it will be lifted off the surface. No MATLAB necessary for this one!
fprintf('%.4f meters',1/(2*pi))
A little taller than a soda can. That's pretty difficult for me to imagine. I would have estimated a much smaller height when adding only 1 m length.
Select a Web Site
Choose a web site to get translated content where available and see local events and offers. Based on your location, we recommend that you select: United States.
You can also select a web site from the following list
Americas
- América Latina (Español)
- Canada (English)
- United States (English)
Europe
- Belgium (English)
- Denmark (English)
- Deutschland (Deutsch)
- España (Español)
- Finland (English)
- France (Français)
- Ireland (English)
- Italia (Italiano)
- Luxembourg (English)
- Netherlands (English)
- Norway (English)
- Österreich (Deutsch)
- Portugal (English)
- Sweden (English)
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom(English)
Asia Pacific
- Australia (English)
- India (English)
- New Zealand (English)
- 中国
- 日本Japanese (日本語)
- 한국Korean (한국어)