Explain how you could determine, give the following 3 pieces of information, (you need all 3 together not each one individually) the radius of the Earth.
1)Jakarta and Port Moresby, the capital of pau New Guinea, are two cities on the equator.
2) A plane leaves from Port Moresby bound for Jakarta at a speed of 500 mi/hr and arrives there 5 hours later.
3) A student in Port Moresby turns on a baseball game that is being played in Jakarta and starts right at the time of sunset in Port Moresby. The game finishes 3 hours later (an extra inning affair). The announcer comments at the end of the game that the Sun is just setting in Jakarta.
5 hours at 500 mph = 2500 miles
3 hours is 1/8 of a day, so 2500 miles is 1/8 of the circumference. So, c = 20,000
c = 2pi*r, so
20,000 = 2pi*r
r = 10,000/pi = 3183 miles