Toni -- Alaskan geography

Hey, Toni. I am teaching a collge course in geometry that covers topics like how to measure the size of the earth, etc. So I told my students what you posted here last year about, what state of the U.S. is farthest North? What state is farthest West? What state is farthest East? They thought that was pretty cool.

Mathman

PS. For whoever missed that thread, the answer is Alaska (unless you want to quibble about the International Date Line, LOL.)

You've lost me on the farthest east part...

Bronx... technically Alaska is furthest East because of the Alluetian Island Chain... if you were to follow the dateline to be in a straight line. However to keep all of Alaska on the same page they sort of box around the tip of the chain

For a minute I thought you were going to quiz me there, Mathman... and I was panicked... I'm really only good with my South Central Alaska geography... I get confused in the interior (though I can get to you most of the *big* points on the map )

Toni, You beat me to the answer.

Bronxgirl, as Toni says, some of the Aleutian Islands that are part of Alaska cross the 180th parallel of longitude. So for instance, there is a place where the longitude is 179.99 degrees East. That is as far east as you can go -- almost halfway around the World to the east of the prime meridian through Greenwich.

Of course, that person's next door neighbor lives at 179.99 degrees West longitude.

But Doris Polaski gave a pretty good argument that this is wrong because the international date line bends right there to include all of the Alaskan Islands as being on the west side of the line...no, wait a minute, I mean on the east side...that is, as part of the Western hemisphere (which is to the east of the eastern hemisphere). :think: :think:

Mathman

PS. Aren't you going to ask me how to measure the size of the Earth?

The circumference of the earth is 40,000,000 meters.

Proof: By definition, a meter is one ten millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. So do that 4 times and you've gone all the way around the earth, by a polar route.