Help Needed in Answering Question

r----- Look, a Post-It Note� from "bi;na;ry" <bin...@REMOVETHIS.mfg.sgi.com>! -----
|> > 14.     Two identical planes are flying over the dessert. One at 400 feet
| and
|> > none at 500 feet. Which one has the larger shadow?
|> >
|> > Please enlighten me with regard these questions. THANK YOU
|> 
|> If the sun is overhead, their shadows are for all intents and purposes
|> identical in size, because the light rays from sun are nearly parallel.
|> If you want to be picky, the higher plane will be immeasurably larger.
`---
I know what you mean, but 'immeasurably larger' gives the feeling of huge 
bigness and not an imperceptible difference.  But life goes on---
r---
|Actually the shadow of the higher plane will be smaller. See, the light
|source (the sun) is bigger than the object which means that the light
|will kinda bend around the object. (Light bends anyways but we are not
|going to go in to that topic.)
|Example:
|
|                
|\ 
| |
| |                            /
| |                            |
| |                            |
| |                            |  
| |              __            |  
| |  Plane-->   _\ \_/|        |
| |            <__\ \_/        | <- Earth
| |                \_\         |
| |                            |
| |                            |
| |                            |
| |                            \
| |
| |
| |
| |  <-Sun
|/
|
|Now if you draw lines of where the light can and cannot go you will see
|that as the plane moves closer to the sun the shadow will shrink to the
|and past the point of dissapearing.  Obviously the picture is not to
|scale, so with the picture that I have made, there is no shadow of the
|plane in question.  
|
|Sorry I couldn't do better. That's probably why I am a technician and
|not an artist.
|
|binary
`-----
I think it's a very good picture (the plane).

M.

-- 
mat...@starplace.commander | http://members.delphi.com/matanywira/
.Be sure to remove this^^^^^^of course, but my email is often down..

Maxim Westman wrote:
> 
> r----- Look, a Post-It Note� from "bi;na;ry" <bin...@REMOVETHIS.mfg.sgi.com>! -----
> |> > 14.     Two identical planes are flying over the dessert. One at 400 feet
> | and
> |> > none at 500 feet. Which one has the larger shadow?
> |> >
> |> > Please enlighten me with regard these questions. THANK YOU
> |>
> |> If the sun is overhead, their shadows are for all intents and purposes
> |> identical in size, because the light rays from sun are nearly parallel.
> |> If you want to be picky, the higher plane will be immeasurably larger.
> `---
> I know what you mean, but 'immeasurably larger' gives the feeling of huge
> bigness and not an imperceptible difference.  But life goes on---
> r---
> |Actually the shadow of the higher plane will be smaller. See, the light
> |source (the sun) is bigger than the object which means that the light
> |will kinda bend around the object. (Light bends anyways but we are not
> |going to go in to that topic.)
> |Example:
> |
> |
> |\
> | |
> | |                            /
> | |                            |
> | |                            |
> | |                            |
> | |              __            |
> | |  Plane-->   _\ \_/|        |
> | |            <__\ \_/        | <- Earth
> | |                \_\         |
> | |                            |
> | |                            |
> | |                            |
> | |                            \
> | |
> | |
> | |
> | |  <-Sun
> |/
> |
> |Now if you draw lines of where the light can and cannot go you will see
> |that as the plane moves closer to the sun the shadow will shrink to the
> |and past the point of dissapearing.  Obviously the picture is not to
> |scale, so with the picture that I have made, there is no shadow of the
> |plane in question.
> |
> |Sorry I couldn't do better. That's probably why I am a technician and
> |not an artist.
> |
> |binary
> `-----
> I think it's a very good picture (the plane).
> 
> M.
> 
> --
> mat...@starplace.commander | http://members.delphi.com/matanywira/
> .Be sure to remove this^^^^^^of course, but my email is often down..

Wait, did I read correctly: 'One at 400 feet and none at 500 feet' ?
                                                 ^^^^
Well, if we don't know the height of the second plane, we don't know
which has the larger shadow, do we?

Greetz,
-- 
  <]   O -.                                 /Shimrod\___________________
  ==_._/\   The sun is awfully close to     |             Herman Hiddema
T"""T  _/|  the earth in that picture :)    |         shi...@fmf.ml.org
|   | /| |                                  | http://fmf.ml.org/~shimrod