ST Alpha - "Actually you can do North/South because of the polls, but East/West you can't really do. Relative to what? -- nm" (Reading a Post)

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In response to "Where I am right now. -- nm" by Dano

Actually you can do North/South because of the polls, but East/West you can't really do. Relative to what? -- nm

Posted by Dano (aka dano) Dec 9 '09, 07:27

(No message)

Responses:

It took me the longest time to realize you meant "poles." -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:33 1
- I'm dumb. -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:35
Relative to where you were born. -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:31 27
- Then the furthest west I've been is one step east of where I was born and the furthest east I've been is one step west of where I was born. -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:33 26
  - The farthest east or west you can go is halfway around the world. -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:35 20
    - If I go east halfway around the world, I can still go east. If I go north to the north *pole* I can't go north any more. -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:37 1
      - But then yuo start getting closer to where you started. The question is where are you the farthest away. -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:38
    - well, sort of, but i could walk around the world (well, you know) and be heading west the entire time. -- nm - Elf Andie Dec 9, 07:36 17
      - Irrelevent. The question has to do to with where you're farthest away from where you started? Once you start getting closer, you're not longer at the - mara Dec 9, 07:37 16
        
        what if someone is born at the South Pole (which has happened)? how do you determine the furthest east/west they ever traveled? -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:40 15
        
        It's just interesting that north/south are absolute constructs, but east/west are relative constructs. -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:42 7
        
        but there is still an absolute upper limit on the distance from your starting point, as opposed to "distance travelled", in either direction. -- nm - znufrii Dec 9, 07:45 5
        
        There is no room for interpretation on the question of north/south, but you need more information to answer the question of east/west. - Dano Dec 9, 07:52 4
        
        [deleted] 3
        
        Math is philosophy. What is zero? -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 08:00 1
        
        [deleted]
        
        That's like saying that the mobius strip is unremarkable. :P -- nm - Beryllium Dec 9, 08:00
        
        that's why we have those two arbitrary meridians. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:43
        
        They can't travel east or west at all, can they? Is this a trick question? -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:41 5
        
        and the entire point of my original conundrum -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:43 3
        
        Why? Were any of us born that close to a pole? -- nm - mara Dec 9, 07:51 1
        
        You need more info to answer east/west. You need no more info to answer north/south. - Dano Dec 9, 07:56
        
        another oddity is that in antarctica, you can walk a few miles and go very far east or west, whereas at the equator it might take thousands of miles. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:45
        
        of course it's a trick question! -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:42
        
        I hereby exempt such persons from having to answer this poll. :) - znufrii Dec 9, 07:41
  - now you're just being difficult :) -- nm - znufrii Dec 9, 07:35 1
    - [deleted]
  - only if you were born on the date line. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:33 2
    - (that was my answer based on mara's specific criteria) -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:35
    - i think people are going from where they are.... -- nm - Elf Andie Dec 9, 07:34
I was assuming relative to Greenwich, but you can do relative to your current location as well -- nm - znufrii Dec 9, 07:29 1
- Yep. The 0 and the 180 meridians. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:30
The International Date Line. -- nm - Reagen Dec 9, 07:28 5
- So if I'm standing on the International Date Line and take one step West, then that's the farthest East I've traveled? -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:30 3
  - that's essentially what I did. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:30 2
    - East/West is weird. If you keep going north, you'll eventually be going south. If you keep going east, you're always going east. -- nm - Dano Dec 9, 07:32 1
      - that's because north and south converge on a single point. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:33
- which is why I put Guam for East and Hawaii for West. -- nm - loosilu Dec 9, 07:29
To where you normally reside. -- nm - Loyola Dec 9, 07:28

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Actually you can do North/South because of the polls, but East/West you can't really do. Relative to what? -- nm

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