<story><title>Go east from Seattle</title><url>https://finmoorhouse.com/writing/go-east/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cush</author><text>Travel exactly due East. Now, ignore what East means. Then, ignore the giant white arrow pointing East into Montana in the image we&amp;#x27;ve created to illustrate this question. Also, don&amp;#x27;t worry about anything called a Great Circle, it&amp;#x27;s completely unimportant. What country would you first encounter?&lt;p&gt;Did you get it, idiot? No? Let me explain to you why you&amp;#x27;re wrong.&lt;p&gt;First, you completely missed that the Great Circle I told you not to worry about doesn&amp;#x27;t actually follow along the white arrow I used to illustrate the problem. Clearly, if you completely ignore all the information that was given to you, and what East is, the answer is obviously Australia. Because if you were at the North Pole, a line going East would be a tight circle.&lt;p&gt;Please like and subscribe. To leave a comment, first you must solve this simple math problem&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>enoch_r</author><text>&amp;gt; Travel exactly due East. Now, ignore what East means.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;face east, then travel in a straight line,&amp;quot; not &amp;quot;travel due East&amp;quot; (though I agree that the title itself is misleading).&lt;p&gt;IMO, it&amp;#x27;s a cool thought experiment because it demonstrates that an instruction to &amp;quot;travel in a straight line&amp;quot; is &lt;i&gt;incompatible&lt;/i&gt; with an instruction to &amp;quot;travel due East&amp;quot; (unless you&amp;#x27;re on the equator!) - as the North Pole example illustrates. Start 3 feet south of the North Pole and face east, then start traveling in a straight line. Obviously after 10 or 100 or 1000 miles of travel you&amp;#x27;ll be essentially due south of the pole - and in fact, if you take a single step to the left, you will be &lt;i&gt;exactly&lt;/i&gt; due south of the pole!</text></comment>
<story><title>Go east from Seattle</title><url>https://finmoorhouse.com/writing/go-east/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cush</author><text>Travel exactly due East. Now, ignore what East means. Then, ignore the giant white arrow pointing East into Montana in the image we&amp;#x27;ve created to illustrate this question. Also, don&amp;#x27;t worry about anything called a Great Circle, it&amp;#x27;s completely unimportant. What country would you first encounter?&lt;p&gt;Did you get it, idiot? No? Let me explain to you why you&amp;#x27;re wrong.&lt;p&gt;First, you completely missed that the Great Circle I told you not to worry about doesn&amp;#x27;t actually follow along the white arrow I used to illustrate the problem. Clearly, if you completely ignore all the information that was given to you, and what East is, the answer is obviously Australia. Because if you were at the North Pole, a line going East would be a tight circle.&lt;p&gt;Please like and subscribe. To leave a comment, first you must solve this simple math problem&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ?&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lIl-IIIl</author><text>The way I&amp;#x27;d explain it is:&lt;p&gt;You have a perfect paper airplane. It flies in a straight line regardless of wind, rain, hail or snow. And it keeps in the air a really long time.&lt;p&gt;You get into an air balloon over Seattle and launch your paper airplane directly East.&lt;p&gt;The plane descends so slowly it can leave North America and go over the ocean and eventually will reach another country and still not touch the ground. What is the first country it will reach?</text></comment>