Imagine you would have to put a rope around the moon. Since the moon is 1,738,000 metres in diameter, this is a hard task. Finally you have managed to get the rope around the moon but... it is one meter short.

You decide to dig a groove all around the moon, so that the shorter rope suffices. How deep must this groove be? (Assume the Moon to be a perfect sphere.)

1/(2*pi) is the answer but only because the difference was one (one anything). If it was different than one then we need a different factor.

Posted by John on 2002-05-07 10:43:32