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Geographical / Navigation / Maths question?


mogling
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My neighbour & I were wondering, where the exactly opposite place to Shetland would be in the world?

 

{A bit like, if you took an orange and a long grafting needle and poked one end in through Shetland- where would it come out the other side?

{being a 'diameter' / whatever you call the line that equally dissects / goes through a sphere...

 

{scraped a 'C' for O Level Maths...}

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What you're looking for is an antipode. ... with a little help from google maps ...

 

... taking Lerwick's town hall as our bearing at roughly Lat N 60.154445, Lng W -1.146322 we can then calculate the opposing by going South minusing the Latitude and going East minusing 180deg:

 

Town Hall Lerwick

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=60.154445,-1.146322&t=m&z=20

 

Weet and cold

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-60.154445,178.853678&t=h&z=2

 

You're plopped down past New Zealand between the Pacific Antarctic Ridge and the Udinstev Fracture Zone. Best to take a survival suit with you!

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So is it a lie about being able to tunnel to Australia, then?

 

I'll tell my dog!

 

Apparently a Patterdale terrier can tunnel 9 feet in a day so, using all this maths, how long would it take for my terrier to dig to this point in the "New Zealand between the Pacific Antarctic Ridge and the Udinstev Fracture Zone."?

 

Fx

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http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzdiameter.htm

 

The diameter of the earth at the equator is 7,926.41 miles (12,756.32 kilometers).

But, if you measure the earth through the poles the diameter is a bit shorter - 7,901 miles (12,715.43 km). This the earth is a tad wider (25 miles / 41 km) than it is tall, giving it a slight bulge at the equator. This shape is known as an ellipsoid or more properly, geoid (earth-like)./

 

So taking into account the fact that we're tunnelling from Shetland, the extra width at the equator is negligible.

 

9ft 2.7432 metres

earth's diameter pole to pole 12,715,430 metres

 

Therefore, it would take your dog approximately 4,635,254.45 days to tunnel to the other side.

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