The rope around the earth puzzle.
Rope around the earth.
Let c be the earth s circumference r be its radius c be the added string length and r be the added radius.
How much longer must it be for it to be one foot off the ground all the way around 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.
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.
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.
Now imagine the rope is made just one meter longer and lifted uniformly off the surface until it is once again taught.
As a circle of radius r has a circumference of 2 π r regardless of the value of c.
Student answer form blackline master rope around the world you have a piece of rope that just fits around the earth.
This below is one answer i saw.
Imagine a rope tied around the earth s equator like a ring on a person s finger.
15cm that s how far off the ground we re lifting the string remember out of 6 370km is close.
Imagine there s a rope around the equator of an earth sized sphere making it around 25 000 miles long.
2pi or approximately 6 28 feet for both the basketball and the earth.
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.
Divide again by pi to get the earth s radius 6 370km.
If you put 1 metre high sticks right around the equator and lay the rope on.