52 | New Scientist | 22 February 2020
The back pages Puzzles
Cryptic crossword #25 Set by Sparticle Quick quiz #39 Puzzle set by Zoe Mensch
#47 Geometra’s tomb
Long before the
invention of
satnav, the great
explorer Asosa
Lees embarked
on a trek across
the square desert
of Angula in a
quest to find the
lost tomb of Geometra, which lay
somewhere along the line marked A.
Lees had nothing but the crude and
incomplete diagram shown and some
basic instructions: proceed south-west
for 100 kilometres, and then turn left.
The only other information she had was
that at the moment she turned left, the
distance to the south-west corner of the
desert was 100 kilometres further than
the distance to the south-east corner.
To reach the tomb, Lees needed to head
in precisely the right direction. Fortunately
using her knowledge of geometry she was
able to take the correct bearing. At what
angle did she head off towards the tomb?Answer next week#46 Pi-thagoras
Solution
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