[dylan604]

But it just said in a straight line to the east. It gave you a cardinal direction to start. From there forward, you go in a straight line.

It gets tricky if you suggest that you can only travel along a great circle in the direction of the rotation along that axis. Since the axis is actually tilted, this is the result you get from traveling along that great circle.

[cush]

The issue people have is with "straight". It's ambiguous. And the simplest, most intuitive interpretation of "straight" in the context of someone directing you to travel East, is to continue travelling East.

It's like handing someone a compass pointing East, then saying "walk in a straight line", and expecting them to slowly travel in a wandering arc. It's insane.

[dylan604]

Maybe so, but that's not how geometry works. If geometry worked by my interpretation, then I would have skated through that class with an even higher grade than I got by following the rules.

Also, the GGGGP that I replied to started by trying to walking a tangential line to a sphere resulting in a space walk. That's like THC induced levels of strained thinking of the subject.

[cush]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40568527

^^

https://imgur.com/IiK6SPu