"Water two ways"
Note: Emails are organized in the order received, with first received at the top.
Dear Readers:
If you read last week's column, "Water two ways" and thought I had lost my mind in the math, you were probably correct. An embarrassing rookie mistake--multiplying when I should have been dividing. Even more embarrassing is that I failed to use dimensional analysis to check my work. Thanks for all the calls and emails, I'll just print a couple. If you wish to see the corrected article, you can find it at http://www.nipimpressions.com/article/796/water-two-ways.
Jim
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Check your math - if you have to evaporate 16,700,000 gallons per day
(69,500 tons ) to make 1000 tpd of paper then you've got a big problem!!!
Brian Maahs
Wausau, Wisconsin
USA
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This problem can be solved by either deduction or some heavy-duty math. Let's go with deduction.
At any given instant in time, as each person moves toward the person to his or her left, they form an equilateral triangle which shrinks and rotates as they move closer and closer to each other. An equilateral triangle has three equal sides (50 yards in this case) and, therefore three equal angles (60 degrees at each vertex). The path of each pursuer will always be at 60 degrees to the path of the pursued. Thus, there is no component of one person's movement which takes them toward or away from their pursuer. Consequently, the pursuer will capture the pursued in the same time it would take if the pursued remained stationary. The length of each spiral path will therefore be the same as the length of a side of the original triangle: 50 yards.
Steven J. Moore
Rhinelander, Wisconsin
USA
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You might want to check what Travis said above.
Jim
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Do you realize how inconvenient it is to get drivel like this when traveling and using a cell phone for email?
(name withheld)
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This brings up a couple of points. (1) We never want anyone to get our publications that do not want them and we have many ways to unsubscribe [FYI--readership is up about 65% year over year from an already strong base, by the way]. (2) It looks like about January 2010, according to the software developers, we will have versions friendly for mobile devices.
Jim
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