Page 22 - Discover Spring 2023
P. 22
A WINTER
PUZZLE
Clyde Crashcup has created the Trans- length will increase by one inch in total.
Continental Handrail across the whole “Ha!” Clyde snorts, “One inch in a 4,000
country!
mile handrail? That’s nothing!”
The excited inventor decides to make a big Let’s suppose when the handrail expands,
splash with a ceremony to dedicate this it buckles upward at its weakest point,
monumental triumph! He has installed which is in the center. How much higher
the longest handrail in the history of the will pedestrians in the middle of the
world, with 4,000 miles from beginning to country have to reach in summer to grab
end. But just after the opening ceremony, the handrail? That is, in the figure below,
his assistant Leonardo reminds him that what is h? (For the purposes of this question,
the metal that was used for the handrail ignore the curvature of the Earth and assume
expands slightly in summer, so that its
the trail is a straight line.)
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20 Discover Smith Mountain Lake SPRING 2023
