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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!stolaf!mmm!cipher
From: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: Re: Explorer paradox * SEMI-SPOILER *
Message-ID: <431@mmm.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jan-86 19:10:57 EST
Article-I.D.: mmm.431
Posted: Wed Jan 29 19:10:57 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 01:24:28 EST
References: <2667@sunybcs.UUCP> <1478@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <1011@ecsvax.UUCP> <128@molihp.UUCP> <175@ulowell.UUCP>
Reply-To: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Organization: 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.
Lines: 29

>> >> > From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
>> >> > Message-ID: <2667@sunybcs.UUCP>
>> >> > Here's a new one: a practical joker tampered with the Great Explorer's
>> >> > gyrocompass, so it points 45 degrees off.  The Great Explorer thinks
>> >> > he's going due north on his way to the North Pole...
>> >> > Will he reach the North Pole anyway?
>> 

Henry Schaffer replies:

>> My own thoughts about this are as follows.  If this explorer is following
>> the compass at all, he should eventually arrive at the north pole after
>> a number of spirals toward it...

Chet Dobro adds:
>This is correct given that the compass points to the north pole and not
>magnetic north.

If you read carefully, you see the puzzle refers to a "gyrocompass".  I
am not familiar with the term, but I assume it means that the heading
is maintained by a gyroscope rather than the Earth's magnetic field.
Therefore, the explorer's path will not spiral in to the pole, but will
instead continue in a "straight line" (i.e. a sphere geometry "line").
-- 

 /''`\						Andre Guirard
([]-[])						De Tuss from de Tonn
 \ o /						ihnp4!mmm!cipher
  `-'