"rw" wrote in message
k.net...
Scott Seidman wrote:

Rats. Distributivity gets me again!

There's a way to raise the rope one foot above the surface of the earth
without increasing its length at all. Just move it approximately 308 miles
toward either pole.

Assuming your rope initially follows any circumference other than the
equator this is impossible.

Unfortunately, you'll run up against one of the primary tenets of
engineering: You can't push a rope. :-)

Which demonstrates one of the primary failings of engineering AND the value
of semantics quite nicely. In fact, you most certainly CAN push a rope.


Wolfgang