44 replies to this topic

[Braindead_Genius]

They must be on the two ends of the ship..And the ship is sailing east to west (or west to east)..

--->looks east <-----looks west

------> ship sailing west to east.

isn't it ?

No!
The marines are standing on opposite SIDES of the ship, not ends!
Hence they need to be sailing anywhere BUT east to west or vice versa!

Pick any two points on opposite sides of the ship and draw a line between them.
Now put that line on the east/west axis.

Providing that there is room for these marines to see each other, they could be travelling in almost any direction!

QED!

Sorry, wrong. Your solution is fine, but you shouldn't have corrected mannu. His is correct because there is no definate "side" of the ship. If you want to be technical then the ends are just another side of the ship, only pointier. Although, it doesn't really matter which direction the ship is going because if one were halfway between the front tip and the right middle while the other was halfway between the back tip and the left corner, then if the ship was going north-east they would still be able to see each other. If I'm COMPLETELY wrong about correcting you, I appologize greatly. It is 3:35 A.M. here. So, I am a bit tired since I got up at 7:00 A.M. yesterday morning.

[firefae]

Wow. It's amazing how many people either don't get it, or don't look at the solution before posting. Even I got this one, and I don't think I'm that good at these things. Picture, if you will, two people standing ANYWHERE, looking at each other. Now place them on a boat. Done. Easy. Why make it any more complicated than it has to be?

[Braindead_Genius]

I'm not sure if that was toward me or not, but I doubt it since I obviously get it. But, you'd be surprised by how many things a LOT of simple things people don't understand on here. A lot of the people on here just read it and think they get it, only to find later that they didn't have the right idea at all. It's quite entertaining though. At least, to someone like me it is. (By "someone like me" I mean someone that likes to pick people apart.)

[Smithsps]

Its simple

A1-Man who looks West
A2-Man who looks East
C - Center or Boat

N
W E
S

A2------>Looks this way.
|A2|C|A1|
A1<------Looks this way.

Get it?

[spiralangell]

one was looking was looking this way -> the other <-.
So in the end both directions were seen and both sailors could also see each other.

[DevineMrsM]

The marine on the West side of the ship was facing East and the marine on the East side was facing West

[Navy_Cryptologist]

Do Marines know the difference in East and West?

[superbc]

It's the bermuda triangle. They also saw Santa.

[Lost in space]

I like that
He was delivering a prent to EP

[Topher]

The difficulty with wich some people go about trying to solve some of these riddles is more interesting than the riddle itself.

here's the real question,
Could one marine on a ship in the pacific ocean be east of another marine on a ship in the atlantic ocean who would of course be west of the first marine?

and no measuring east west around the planet is not an option.

A marine off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic would be west of one off the coast of Africa in the Pacific. The same for Eurasia since it is less than 180 degrees wide.

Another, more interesting answer is that the Isthmus of Panama forms a kind of an "S" shape so that the Atlantic is to the West and the Pacific is to the East. If you travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic using the Panama Canal you will be traveling roughly NW.