Divide again by pi to get the earth s radius 6 370km.
Rope around the earth add 3 feet.
Imagine putting the rope around the earth tightly.
Let s say you pull the rope as tight as it will go and then add back 6 feet of slack before tying the knot.
Let c be the earth s circumference r be its radius c be the added string length and r be the added radius.
15cm that s how far off the ground we re lifting the string remember out of 6 370km is close.
From the diagram it s pretty clear it s one foot.
Suppose poindexter takes a very long rope and wraps it around the equator of the earth.
Assume he has just the right length that makes this work without any slack.
All around the earth the rope is raised up uniformly as high as is possible to make it tight again.
40 000 divided by 2 is 20 000.
If you put 1 metre high sticks.
The idea is to imagine the earth is a cube or just a square really and ask yourself if you added say 8 feet to the rope how far would that raise it above the square earth.
Suppose allistair then comes.
Yes i know how that works out but it does not seem logical to think that there would only be 6 feet of rope needed to go all around the so called globe world being 1 foot off of the ground evenly all around.
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.
As a circle of radius r has a circumference of 2 π r regardless of the value of c.
A corollary is that to raise the original string 16 cm 6 3 in off the ground all the way around the equator only about 1 metre 3 ft 3 in needs to be added.
If the extra rope is distributed evenly around the globe will there be enough space between the rope and the surface of the earth for a worm to crawl under.
C add 2 π h 2 3 14 1 6 28 metres.
Suppose you tie a rope around the earth at the equator circumference approx.
For h 1 metre additional length of rope required.
In fact this brain teaser requires neither an exact measurement of the earth s circumference which in fact varies by many kilometers depending on which circumference you measure nor even an assumption that the earth has a circular cross sect.
You have a piece of rope that just fits around the earth.