"GROVER" wrote in message
oups.com...
Since I've been enjoying the topics and discussions of this news
group, and I see that there are many posters who are quite bright, I
decided to pose a question concerning the laws of physics to
stimulate the group's curiosity.

The question is: If you hang two plumb bobs, say 50 feet apart are the
strings parallel?


I would say they are as close to parallel as one would care for them to be.
If you want to get technical, they are not exactly parallel due to the
curvature of the earth. One would assume that the bottom of the plumb bob
is pointing at the exact centre of the earth due to gravity and since we're
on a ball, they wouldn't be exactly parallel. At 50 feet apart, the
difference wouldn't be enough to care about.