From Seattle move in a straight line due East. What country will you hit?

[sparker72678]

Title here, "From Seattle move in a straight line due East. What country will you hit?" is subtly different from what the article is describing: "From Seattle, face due East. Now, continue forward in a straight line..."

[nicolashahn]

How does this change the meaning and answer?

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Canada, then France.

The supposed answer, Australia, is entirely divorced from reality.

[happytoexplain]

A strangely curt denial. Obviously the salient idea is that the intersection between spherical coordinates and two-dimensional coordinates creates two human interpretations for the phrase "head East in a straight line from point X". A line can start East and be straight both locally and globally, or it can maintain East and be straight only locally and not globally. In the first, you hit Australia, and in the second, France. Neither are in the slightest "divorced from reality".

[DaveExeter]

I was going to guess Spain but the correct answer is France.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

If we're going by a "simple interpretation" of the submitted title I'm pretty sure it's Canada. But the article actually says you'll hit "another country" after you leave North America. Which is more or less true but the use of "another" seems to be confusing a continent for a country.

I guess due South would be Canada and due North would be USA by that measure.

[LammyL]

Shouldn’t the answer be Canada?

[outside1234]

Going to make this my next interview question