Saturday, May 14, 2011

It's closer if you drive faster


I saw the dumbest question today on Wiki.Answers. Or at least it seemed dumb to me.

"What is the driving distance from Baltimore to New York City, driving at 60 mph?"

3 comments:

  1. To answer this I'd drive from Baltimore to New York City, at sixty miles per hour, noting carefully the elapsed time, then the number of minutes, at one mile per minute, would give me the distance travelled.
    Of course, traffic rarely moves at a steady speed, so I'd recommend using a time/speed graph recorder, like, for instance, a truck tachograph, and spend a few hours working out the conversion factors relating to speeds travelled vs periods of time.
    That would, of course, be a very slow and difficult way.

    All in all, I'd recommend noot being so fixated upon the speed, (though I suppose if your cruise control's stuck, you might have no options) Pack a couple of week's worth of provisions, and just set off. Travelling at sixty miles per hour, it would take you seventeen days and about eight hours to circumnavigate the globe, provided you go in a straight line. So you should make it to New York.
    It might be wiser to take three weeks worth of provisions, in case your compass is a degree ortwo out and you miss your target.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It depends on whether you're going uphill or downhill.

    ReplyDelete

You must be at least minimally sober to comment!