rangerssuck wrote in
:

On Wednesday, August 13, 2014 6:43:55 AM UTC-4, Doug Miller
wrote: ...
Related thought experiment: suppose you have a string wrapped
tightly around the surface of the earth. How much longer does
that string need to be, if you want to put it on one-foot-high
standoffs all around the planet?
...
About 8" (two feet / pi).

Nope.

Correct answer is 2 pi feet.

Related thought experiment: Suppose you have a mile of railroad
track. Suppose it gets really hot and the track expands (in
length) by one inch. Suppose that, due to the expansion, the
track buckles in the middle, forming an isosceles triangle. How
high will the bump in the middle be?

Nearly fifteen feet.