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Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

beyondhorizons.eu

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Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#51

Post by theoh »

burkaman wrote: post #34
kbenson wrote: post #32

Mt. McKinley (6.194 m.) What country uses '.' as the thousands separator but speaks English? Or is this someone mixing their native language thousands separator with English? Or is there some weird interaction between country and language that makes this the preferred, or at minimum an acceptable standard form? I'm actually hoping it's one of the latter options, that would be something new to me.

.eu suggests this website was not created by native English speakers.

The UK and Ireland are (currently) in the EU and it's not uncommon for English-speaking organizations/individuals with a particularly internationalist perspective to use the .eu domain.

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#52

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kovek wrote: post #42
btilly wrote: post #25

You can actually work out roughly how far away the horizon should be surprisingly easily. Just use the fact that if R is the radius of the Earth and you are at height h, then from you to the horizon to the center of the Earth back to you is a right angled triangle with one side of length R and the hypotenuse of length R+h. Therefore the distance to the horizon is sqrt(2Rh+h^2) which is roughly sqrt(2Rh). The Earth is…

I had this question worded differently asked to me when I interviewed to do an undergrad at Cambridge. If you have a rope that is wrapped around earth and you lift it off the ground as much as possible, and you see that it is 10km above the ground, then how long is the rope? I was not able to answer that question right away, and their hint to draw it helped a lot. I did not end up getting accepted.

It seems like one of those stupid brain teasers tech companies used to ask that are not very correlated with success but act as arbitrary filters.

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#53

Post by jdironman »

newman8r wrote: post #8
moxious wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you included skyscrapers I bet you'd have the same list no changes. Most of these mountains are > 2km tall.

you'd still probably have one of those coordinates (of the tall mountain) remain the same, then find a tower that goes even further than the second point - although I never assume my logic is correct in geodesy/astronomy, especially when I'm tired edit* - in practice you're probably right

Laser powered ISPs anyone?

I kid, but is this a possibility?

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#54

Post by Ashlyn_ »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #52
kovek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this question worded differently asked to me when I interviewed to do an undergrad at Cambridge. If you have a rope that is wrapped around earth and you lift it off the ground as much as possible, and you see that it is 10km above the ground, then how long is the rope? I was not able to answer that question right away, and their hint to draw it helped a lot. I did not end up getting accepted.

It seems like one of those stupid brain teasers tech companies used to ask that are not very correlated with success but act as arbitrary filters.

My mothers neighbour is working part time and averaging $9000 a month. I'm a single mum and just got my first paycheck for $6546! I still can't believe it. I tried it out cause I got really desperate and now I couldn't be happier. Heres what I do, •••••••••>>http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#57

Post by YZF »

kovek wrote: post #42
btilly wrote: post #25

You can actually work out roughly how far away the horizon should be surprisingly easily. Just use the fact that if R is the radius of the Earth and you are at height h, then from you to the horizon to the center of the Earth back to you is a right angled triangle with one side of length R and the hypotenuse of length R+h. Therefore the distance to the horizon is sqrt(2Rh+h^2) which is roughly sqrt(2Rh). The Earth is…

I had this question worded differently asked to me when I interviewed to do an undergrad at Cambridge. If you have a rope that is wrapped around earth and you lift it off the ground as much as possible, and you see that it is 10km above the ground, then how long is the rope? I was not able to answer that question right away, and their hint to draw it helped a lot. I did not end up getting accepted.

The version I got, in a tech company interview, was how much longer would you need to make the rope to allow a cat to go under it. They were basically just look for 2 x Pi x Cat in this case.

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#58

Post by greggman »

xxxxxxxx wrote: post #12

This is very cool. I'm told you can see Mt Fuji from Tokyo on a clear day, but I never managed to see it. I did manage to see Mont Blanc from my Kitchen in Lausanne, Switzerland a few times - such a beautiful sight.

It's not that far away. You just need a clear day and get a little up above

https://www.google.com/search?q=fuji+from+tokyo&source=lnms&...

Los Angeles also as mountains, they aren't nearly as far but they are also usually blocked by haze and other obstacles. But on a clear day...

https://www.google.com/search?q=los+angeles+mountains&source...

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#59

Post by hodgesrm »

amacbride wrote: post #55

The Mount Hamilton to Yosemite view (168 miles), is the one that blew my mind when I first saw it: http://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=416

Another good one is Mt. Diablo to Mt. Lassen, which is around 180 miles. That's the longest one I have seen in California. Tom Stienstra claimed it's 180 miles, which is a long way. [1] Other sources claim somewhat shorter distances.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/Clear-viewing-from-Mo...

(Oops somebody already pointed it out!)

Re: Longest Lines of Sight on Earth

#60

Post by JulienSchmidt »

burkaman wrote: post #34
kbenson wrote: post #32

Mt. McKinley (6.194 m.) What country uses '.' as the thousands separator but speaks English? Or is this someone mixing their native language thousands separator with English? Or is there some weird interaction between country and language that makes this the preferred, or at minimum an acceptable standard form? I'm actually hoping it's one of the latter options, that would be something new to me.

.eu suggests this website was not created by native English speakers.

The website also has info pages about the authors: 3 from Spain and 1 from Andorra. The first language of all authors seems to be either Spanish or Catalan.
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