A better problem for my flatmate : The bear in the window

By | 2007-01-30

Yesterday my flatmate was complaining about my previous post. He read it, and he found the solution quite quickly… he asked for a real challenge. Then we started to comment logical problems throughout the supper. And now, I’ve prepared a big one.

“The bear in the window”
I was a bit bored at home, so I decided to have a walk. I walked 10 Km to the South, then I turned left, walking straight 10 Km to the East, and then I turned again, going 10 Km to the North, directly arriving to my home. Then I opened a window, and I saw a bear in the outside. Where my house is?

If you want to see the “easy” solution, look at the first comment. And no, there is no mistake in my walk-path. Moreover, my house is a normal house, and it’s on the surface of the Earth.

8 thoughts on “A better problem for my flatmate : The bear in the window

  1. Julio Post author

    My house is just on the North Pole. As you can see in this picture, you can walk in a triangle, returning to the original point.

    The funny thing is the “detail” of the bear. It’s decisive… because if there are no bears in the outside, we can have more places. Really? YES!!

    So, here is the hardest problem. There are more places in the Earth where my house can be. Where my house can be, apart the North Pole?

    In a couple of days, the solution!

  2. JJC

    However, building a house on ice is not the best of ideas. If you had built it in the south pole, and said that there were penguins, it´d have made more sense on planet Earth… 😉

  3. Rubén

    Got it too, aunque la parte difícil no me ha apetecido hacerla jeje

  4. Julio Post author

    The other places are…

    If you are in latitude 89º59′49″ and you try to walk 10Km to the East, you make a full turn of the Earth!! In the ecuator, the circumference of the Earth is around 40000Km, but as soon as you move to other latitude, this circumference becomes smaller. Next to the pole, this can be only 10Km, or even less.

    So, my house can also be on around latitude 89º53′50″ South (10Km to the North of latitude 89º59′49″ South), next to the South Pole (and next to the North Pole is not posible, it’s “out of range”).

    By the way, there are NO BEARS in Antarctica 😉

  5. Gregorio

    the question, why does a bear appear in the problem?

    i guess the question should be: “which colour was the bear?”

    regards,
    Gregorio

  6. Julio Post author

    The bear is IMPORTANT, because:
    – If there is a bear in the window, only the easy solution (North Pole) is posible. The hardest solution (89º South) is not posible because there are NO bears in Antarctica.
    – Therefore, if there are NO bears in the window, both solutions can be posible.

  7. Pingback: Liopic » Blog Archive » “A bear in the window” problem, revisited

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