A question of bears.....

[Gary Manuel]

A hunter leaves his cabin early in the morning and walks one mile due south. Here he sees a bear and starts chasing it for one mile due east before he is able to shoot the bear. After shooting the bear, he drags it one mile due north back to his cabin where he started that morning. What color is the bear?

 

Edited By Gary Manuel on 16/10/2016 22:03:26

Edited By Gary Manuel on 16/10/2016 22:03:55

[WolstonFlyer]

White.

It's a polar bear and his cabin is at the North Pole.

Edited By WolstonFlyer on 16/10/2016 22:03:23

[Gary Manuel]

Ah but the hunter would not be able to drag the bear for one mile so you are wrong.

[Pete B]

Hmm - the directions indicate that he lives at the South Pole - so he's highly unlikely to see a bear of any colour...

A bit more water with the next one, Gary?

Pete

ps  Oy! You've edited your first post!!!

Edited By Pete B - Moderator on 16/10/2016 22:09:44

[WolstonFlyer]

Does he have a conveyor belt?

Sorry it's a very old question, my kids asked me this one a few years ago

[IanN]

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 16/10/2016 22:08:19:

Hmm - the directions indicate that he lives at the South Pole - so he's highly unlikely to see a bear of any colour...

A bit more water with the next one, Gary?

Pete

ps Oy! You've edited your first post!!!

Edited By Pete B - Moderator on 16/10/2016 22:09:44

Surely you can't walk south from the south pole. Pete - or was that the bit he edited?

[Gary Manuel]

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 16/10/2016 22:08:19:

Hmm - the directions indicate that he lives at the South Pole - so he's highly unlikely to see a bear of any colour...

A bit more water with the next one, Gary?

Pete

ps Oy! You've edited your first post!!!

Edited By Pete B - Moderator on 16/10/2016 22:09:44

I editted my second post. I was going to make it a trick question but WF shouted out the answer before I could edit it, so I changed it back.

Edited By Gary Manuel on 16/10/2016 22:16:40

[IanN]

Anyway, this is a much more interesting bear

[Gary Manuel]

You guys ar far too smart for me.

A lot of fun though.

[WolstonFlyer]

[Barrie Dav 2]

Naughty!

[The Wright Stuff]

Question. Sounds obvious, but best answer wins!

Why is there a North pole and a South pole, but no East or West poles?

[Megawatt]

Posted by The Wright Stuff on 17/10/2016 09:33:57:

Question. Sounds obvious, but best answer wins!

Why is there a North pole and a South pole, but no East or West poles?

Because the N & S Poles relate to the axis on which the Earth spins.

Im interested in how a mirror reverses your face left to right but not top to bottom - how does it know?

Edited By Megawatt on 17/10/2016 09:44:04

Edited By Megawatt on 17/10/2016 09:44:28

[WolstonFlyer]

Mathematically, any point on the surface of a sphere can be defined as the pole. People associate "North" with one such point.

Then, the point most distant from it on the surface would be referred to as the opposite pole call it "South" or "Anti-North", connect the two poles with a great circle around the sphere, and you have divided it into two hemispheres. There is a catch, there is an infinite number of great circles passing through the two poles. You must designate a third point in order to uniquely determine a single great circle of reference. People decided to use "Greenwich" for this point, and use "eastern" and "western" to refer to the resulting hemispheres from there. Logically, the "east pole" and "west pole" are the two points on the sphere most distant from this great reference circle although not an axis of rotation for this particular planet that we call home.

[Andy48]

Posted by The Wright Stuff on 17/10/2016 09:33:57:

Question. Sounds obvious, but best answer wins!

Why is there a North pole and a South pole, but no East or West poles?

That's easy, the north and south poles are so remote nobody has interfered with them, but the east and west poles were burned for firewood centurys ago.

[Martin Whybrow]

Posted by Megawatt on 17/10/2016 09:43:47:

Im interested in how a mirror reverses your face left to right but not top to bottom - how does it know?

Edited By Megawatt on 17/10/2016 09:44:04

Edited By Megawatt on 17/10/2016 09:44:28

I've pondered this and came this conclusion - if you're facing the same way as your reflection would be if you were viewing it, i.e. you have your back to the mirror, then you rotate yourself 180 degrees left to right to see your reflection; if you were instead to rotate 180 degrees about your waist instead, your reflection would now be reversed top to bottom instead!

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by Andy48 on 17/10/2016 12:08:24:

Posted by The Wright Stuff on 17/10/2016 09:33:57:

Question. Sounds obvious, but best answer wins!

Why is there a North pole and a South pole, but no East or West poles?

That's easy, the north and south poles are so remote nobody has interfered with them, but the east and west poles were burned for firewood centurys ago.

That's just plain silly. The West pole is in the Pacific Ocean and the East pole is in the Indian Ocean. They simply floated away!

...although it is feasible that they ended up as driftwood on a beach, so on second thoughts, your answer may be factually correct and I commend it.

[The Wright Stuff]

I've pondered this and came this conclusion - if you're facing the same way as your reflection would be if you were viewing it, i.e. you have your back to the mirror, then you rotate yourself 180 degrees left to right to see your reflection; if you were instead to rotate 180 degrees about your waist instead, your reflection would now be reversed top to bottom instead!

James May explained this a few years ago, but I was never 100% happy with the clarity of his explanation. It’s actually very similar to the East Pole/West Pole question. It’s all about perception – nothing, really, to do with physics!

When you stand in a room with the door on your left and window on your right, and turn around through 180 degrees, the window is now on your left, and door on your right. The ceiling, however, is still above you and the floor below. No mirrors involved at all with this trick! It’s nothing to do with the action of the mirror, it’s just our definition of left and right is swapped by a rotation about the vertical axis (180 degree yaw, if you like).

A mirror on the other hand, does not involve any rotation about any axis – imagine instead the mirror pushes your image through yourself, much like pressing on a rubber (clown) mask to turn it inside out.

So because our definition of left/right involves a rotation, but the mirror reflection does not, it appears to have swapped left and right. But it’s just an illusion caused by our imaginings that the mirror rotates, when it’s just the way we define ‘left’ and ‘right’. Right?

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

On the subject of the North pole, that also ended up far away from its correct position. I recall reading that it was discovered in East Sussex by Winnie The Poo - fittingly given the title of this thread, a well known bear (of little brain), who used it to fish a fellow explorer, named Roo out of the river in the 100 acre wood during an expotition organised to find it. The authenticity was verified by the noted expert on all things, Christoper Robin.

I have to say that one of the greatest privileges of father/grandfatherhood is the opportunity to read these stories to small people.

Edited By Martin Harris on 17/10/2016 13:26:26

[The Wright Stuff]

Posted by Martin Harris on 17/10/2016 13:16:43:

I have to say that one of the greatest privileges of father/grandfatherhood is the opportunity to read these stories to small people.

Agreed, Martin. As a recent father [that's why I haven't been about much], I am also dreading the inevitable questions about conveyor belts, north poles, and mirrors, from future 4 year olds...

I can cope with "where do babies come from?" It's the physics questions I fear!