Rich Grise wrote:
Jim Stewart wrote:
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
fired this volley in
:

http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzl...116/index.html

In this case, there is no "higher math". The poles must be exactly
touching for half of a 150' long rope to reach down 75'.

Oh hell...

I was going to get out an ancient electrical engineering
book that was full of wire droop formulas to figure it out...

I looked up "cantenary" (note spelling) and Wiki had the formula;
^^^^^^^^^ -- OOOPPPS!!!!!!!!!
I was all set to write a program that would try test values in the
formula until I zeroed in on one that gave the answer. I wonder
if in this case it would converge? I guess I now have one more
useless thing to waste my ample "spare time" on. ;-)

"Catenary," of course.

Cheers!
Rich