[Guest]

Starting at the equator, a bird flies a constant direction: northwest (his path will always intersect the merideans at 45 degrees). He is a fast bird, flying 200 kilometers an hour.

The earth's radius is about 6050 kilometers, it's circumference about 38025 kilometers.

How long will it take the bird to reach the north pole?

Hop

[Guest]

never - - forever - untill it dies trying

which species migrates there, they may follow a ship but its about -25C at best - dont think there have been sightings at the pole

taking it to be a trick question

[Guest]

never - - forever - untill it dies trying

which species migrates there, they may follow a ship but its about -25C at best - dont think there have been sightings at the pole

taking it to be a trick question

"never -- forever" might be right. Why do you think so?

[Guest]

Well i would think it would be imposible if it is going nothe west it couldnt reach the norht pole

[Guest]

"never -- forever" might be right. Why do you think so?

like the ilusion

way to cold for living except penguins, basically at its warmest there is no food there. its mostly frozen, probably be confused with the magnet north for migatory birds. i believe there is no actual land under the n pole so what will they live on - nothing to go there for - unless its purely a math problem, but then yo wld probably said a plane instead

[Guest]

it would pass the north pole b/c of the tilt of the earth

[Guest]

Essentially what I'm seeing is a spiral happening

But the really hard part is that this isn't euclidian geometry !!!

Edited July 13, 2008 by Chaplam13

[Guest]

Essentially what I'm seeing is a spiral happening

But the really hard part is that this isn't euclidian geometry !!!

Some others see it too, I think. You head straight northwest all the time and your path will be a loxodrome. A beautiful rendition of this curve is

Escher's Sphere Spirals. The bird would forever fly along a never ending spiral. This confounded early mariners who tried to travel in a "straight line" by keeping the same direction. It also confounds people when they see curved airplane paths on a map -- they'll ask "why don't they take the shortest path?". On a globe the shortest path is along a great circle. And most great circles won't show as straight lines on ordinary flat maps. But loxodromes will show as straight lines on a Mercator map.

Edited July 13, 2008 by Hop David