Dear Marilyn vos Savant:
In the April 22, 2001 issue of Parade, Hollister Hartman wrote a letter
asking how the location of a sign indicating distances to various world
cities could be easily determined. You put this question to your readers.
For the country, it's simple: the United States, the only country in the
world that still stubbornly clings to an outmoded, convoluted, absurd
measurement system that includes miles. In any other country the distances
would be in kilometers.
To determine where in the USA the sign would be located, get a world map that
does not distort distances. Set a compass to the distance indicated for each
city, put the point on that city, and draw a circle. The sign is located
where the circles intersect.
Carleton MacDonald
9533 Emory Grove Road
Gaithersburg*, Maryland 20877
*home of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which, through
its Metric Program and in the face of incredible political and know-nothing
opposition, is trying to bring the USA in step with the rest of the planet.
