Originally posted by THUDandBLUNDER You are standing on the equator. If you now begin to move in the north-west direction and continue to do so, where will you end up (arrive)?
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Depends, no? Where do you begin? Can you walk on water? You will end up on the equator eventually, but I think you will not cross the north pole, if that is what you mean.
Originally posted by piderman Depends, no? Where do you begin? Can you walk on water? You will end up on the equator eventually, but I think you will not cross the north pole, if that is what you mean.
Yeah, assume the oceans are not a problem and that we can always travel NW.
Originally posted by THUDandBLUNDER Yeah, assume the oceans are not a problem and that we can always travel NW.
You begin on the equator, like I said.
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NW in a straight line from you're start point or do you take a line that corrects for the fact as you move so will the direction of NW? In the later case you'll spiral in on the north pole but never hit it I think....
Originally posted by Simonm NW in a straight line from you're start point or do you take a line that corrects for the fact as you move so will the direction of NW? In the later case you'll spiral in on the north pole but never hit it I think....
Well, assuming you remain on the surface of the earth (you don't leave the planet or burrow into it), it would seem to me that if you keep going North and West, you will eventually run out of North to go (and west I suppose), having arrived at the pole. Every direction will be south at that point.
In theory you'd never actually reach the pole as you would always be heading at a 45 degree angle from it, though in practice you would reach it.....
Because the arc length of the curve (a loxodrome) is finite and equal to square root of 2 times the distance of equator from pole.
(Of course, we are assuming that the earth is perfectly spherical and that 'you' are a point.)
Well since the Earth is really flat and not spherical. Heading in a North West direction from the equator you would either drown in the ocean but if you didn't drown you would fall of Earth.
Originally posted by THUDandBLUNDER I didn't realize there were so many north-wests.
Not magnetic north-west.
What is the difference between the other two?
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Well, actually the terms used in the military are true north, grid north, and magnetic north, although I'm sure that there is a true, grid, and magnetic for any other direction.
Anyways, magnetic north reading you would get from a magnetic compass, grid north is the norrthern direction as read from a map, and true north is the actual direction, as applied to the physical world.
North By North-west
16 Jun '04 14:30
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