You should hear my nicknames for some of them

Texas - the lone star state is no longer its own country
Missouri - what are they showing anyway?
New Jersey - more pollution than gardens?

I can't think of any more off the top of my head that don't fit.

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No, this was a rock solid fact, that wasn't.

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You're not talking about the Freestone state of Connecticut? They don't use that anymore.

Pennsylvania is the Keystone State, and although it geographically isn't the keystone of the US, it retains its nickname.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


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am I close?

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You gotta be talking about The Old Man Of The Mountain, in New Hampshire. It's on the state emblem, but the motto is Live Free or Die

It was on their quarter too.

Sorry crosscountry, hhEb009'1 has got the right state, but not the reason. 50%, going once, going twice....

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Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, people want to be entertained.

It only went once! The Old Man fell.

Sold!

Your go, h'1.

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Thanks! I'd've quibbled about that being a nickname, but you laid out a broad enough hint that we could answer the question.

Here's another: how far apart are the north magnetic pole, and the south magentic pole? Document your answer.

in 2005 the South pole was at 79.74°S and 108.22°E
or
North pole was at 79.74° N 71.78° W

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pole

using the equation
cos a = cos b cos c + sin b sin c cos A
to find angular distance I come up with almost 180 degrees of an arc.
Now

arcangle/360 = arc/circumference . Using 6400 kilometers for the radius of the earth, it gives me 20106 kilometers (around the great circle). Not near what I expected.

of course, if you measure distance as the shortest line between two points, you'll get. 6400*2 = 12800 kilometers.

I did the spherical to cartesian coordinates and squared all the sums just to check.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


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Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Using those numbers, you should have come up with exactly 180 degrees. Unfortunately, that's not the distance between the Earth's magnetic poles! Impressive work crosscountry, the angular distance would have been enough for me.

what that a go-ahead?

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


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Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

no, sorry, those were not the earth magnetic poles.

Are you sure?

I found the exact same coordinates at this site:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/faqgeom.shtml#q4

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Yes, I'm sure. Weirdly enough, that link appears to give the correct definition of the earth's magnetic poles, but then it does not give the coordinates. I had thought the hard part of this was going to be spherical trig!

The magnetic poles or dip pole are computed from all the Gauss coefficients using an iterative method. Based on the current WMM model, the 2005 location of the north magnetic pole is 83.21°N and 118.32°W and the south magnetic pole is 64.53°S and 137.86°E.


Do I need to do the trig agian? (that is if these numbers are correct) from th e link teddyv gave.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


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Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Yes, I need it for my homework

PS: I just checked the wiki link you gave earlier, and it has a bit different magnetic north pole coordinates, but the wiki magnetic south pole link has those identical coordinates listed. Weird.

PSS: Researched some more. The wiki page seems to use the NGDC coordinates for the south pole (hence the agreement), but uses the Canadian Geophysical estimate for 2005--which is based upon the 2001 measurement and extrapolated out using a constant drift. So, the NGDC (teddyv's link) may be the best available.

all right, using this formula

AS = cos-1 [(sinS * SinN) + (cosS * cosN * cos(W-E))]

where AS is angular seperation and NSEW represent the decimal degrees of each coordinate respectively

I come up with 160.8 degrees of seperation.

now, AS/360 = Arc/circ

where Arc is the seperation you are asking for, in kilometers, with circ the average radius of the Earth (6400 kilometers)*Pi*2

that gives a total of 17961.9 kilometers - with too many significant figures, I know!



By the way, that is way closer than I expected. Of course no angular distance can ever be over 180 degrees on a sphere - so we expect less, just not that much.

If I'm right please allow me some time to come up with an equally good question. Plus I have my German final exam tomorrow and must be studying now.

__________________
"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross