The earth is round. Let’s take that as a given. If you disagree, you’re probably not a fan of iQ Trivia.
In this picture, the man is in Sydney, and he is looking towards Auckland at point D.
How much “lower” is Auckland? In other words, how much has the earth curved away?
Is it 3.6km, 36km, 360km, 3,600km, or 36,000km?
The first new player to comment on the website with the correct answer wins a free drink at their next iQ Trivia show.
360 km.
You need to know the Earth’s radius of about 6366 km and apply Pythagoras’ theorem knowing that one side is 6366 km and the other (distance Sydney/Auckland; living in Canada I estimated it) is about 2100 km. This gives the hypotenuse as 6703 km. Subtracting the 6366 radius gives us 337 km.
The earth’s radius comes from the original definition of a metre as being 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator on a line running through Paris, therefore 40000 km circumference.
Old Bill
Well done with the additional points.