When you reach the constant of the equation, remember the turtle drinks beer.
~ WOV
I wonder what Jim and Pam were fighting over that made them both leave. 
I should add to my previous remarks, in case it’s not now obvious to everyone, that this is a trick question designed to test the student’s capacity for “outside the box” thinking. It appears on the surface to be a straightforward algebra problem, but actually presents an impossible situation that can never happen in the real world. One notes how the OP got drawn into the details, and quite commendably points out the need to account for the effects of special relativity; specifically, one must account for the increase in inertia, time dilation, and the Lorentz contraction of Jim and Pam and their respective bicycles. This, however, is completely the wrong approach, as the correct answer is that the question posits an impossible situation – Jim is most likely a frail old geezer who can barely keep a bike upright – and the correct response for an “A” grade is that the question is a fucking waste of time.
Whatever the answer to the algebra puzzle, I applaud Dopers for retaining enough decorum to avoid lubricious details of what precisely Jim and Pam were doing together at the exact same spot.
Of course. We’re all mad here.
They probably weren’t doing much. Again, there’s much more going on here than mere algebra, and the astute reader will be able to extract important clues from the problem statement. From the description of her cycling skills and apparent willingness to go camping, we can infer that Pam is a healthy young woman and an energetic outdoor girl, and probably quite fit and attractive. Jim, however, is a different story. He’s depicted as a pathetic weakling who is most likely well stricken in years, the sort of doddering old fart that Pam may have naively regarded as a sort of surrogate grandfather. He may well have lured Pam into the woods for nefarious purposes on the pretext of an innocent bicycle ride – a possibility supported by the fact of Pam’s rapid departure at high speed when Jim’s leacherous intentions apparently became clear – but it’s doubtful that the old geezer ever got past first base.
And if Jim gets to the pole, he will stop since he is only proceeding due north. However, this is not necessarily an issue if, when he gets to the pole, Pam instantaneously slows down to 7 kph.
Since the author of the problem chose to use the present participle form “biking” I got the impression that he or she meant that Pam would continue on an easterly bearing throughout her journey and not travel along a geodesic. (Unless, of course, she started on the equator.) I do admit, however, that the problem as stated is somewhat ambiguous.
We could start by choosing a point on each of their bicycles that is vertically aligned with the anteroposterior axis of each of their bicycles. The center of the seats of the bicycles are so aligned, We should also choose points on their bodies that do not move much in relation to the center of the bicycle seats. Perhaps the points on their bodies that are closest to the centers of the seats. Perhaps we have gone far enough with this inquiry.
Jim wasn’t supportive when Pam was angry that Michael started dating Pam’s mom.
Yeah. That ‘Pam’s Mom’. What an Acute Slut!
Thank God you didn’t choose points on the circumference of a wheel. The notorious DGS would have shown up and babbled for paragraphs about his “Unrestrained brachistochrone problem.”
But when are you going to tell us the riddle’s solution? I’ve been crossing out every N’th letter, running the text through rot14, rot15 and rot6. I’ve even Googled elcycib s’ynnaD; and passed the OP through Google Translate. Is the answer “42” after all, as Deep Throat prophesized?
I believe I referenced this in post #4 but you elaborated on it nicely and your North Pole observations were clever so I guess I’m just posting this because I don’t have any math to do.
A line of latitude is only a geodesic at the Equator since it must follow a great circle route to be the shortest distance.
I got Pam rides at 8.63 km/hr. Jim rides at 1.63 km/hr. Jim must have stopped and played John Madden Football for a while.
Don’t be ridiculous! Nobody can ride that slow, even intentionally. The wheels would be moving too slow to sustain an upright position via centrifugal inertia.
The real-world situation would be that Pam is heading east out of camp along the asphalt-paved flat road while Jim is heading north along the rough dirt road containing numerous hills, valleys, and that annoying tree that fell over. Jim is actually moving faster WHEN they’re both traveling, but Pam has a constant speed on the unimpeded road while Jim’s surges and slow-downs and stops and starts give him an average that’s lower than that of Pam.
And, by the way, Pam’s mom was being obtuse, even though she thinks she’s right.
–G!
ETA: Sorry…I thought that read 1.63 mm/hr
Never mind.
Someone posting an apparently innocent question in GQ recently has inadvertently shed more light on the situation. It appears that Pam and Jim already had a stressful relationship before the bicycling and camping episode that ended so badly. And Michael, who was noted in post #30 as having added greatly to the stress by trying to date Pam’s mom, turns out to be a meddlesome doofus who works for the same company:
While I certainly agree that we’ll need all the clues we can get to solve this multidisciplinary problem, methinks Mr. Wolfpup is ignoring one cogent fact from our problem statement. The centers of mass of Jim and Pam started at the exact same spot. Assuming only that neither is hollow nor had ingested the other, we can deduce that at least one of their bodies was arranged in a concave shape at T[sub]0[/sub]. Not only does this tell us that at most one of them can be approximated as a spherical cow, but it implies the two were confluent with more than a hint of physical intimacy. There are Apps that can be downloaded to explore the space of such configurations.
As I say, the problem appears to be a disciplinary one: it’s beginning to look like Pam forgot Jim’s stop word. Perhaps the discipline led to some physical injury — I don’t know else to account for speeds like 1.63 mm/hr. Let’s hope a specialist in the appropriate discipline shows up and offer us detailed instruction.
Regards,
Shodan
Hard to say without photos, but for all we know, it may be a reasonable approximation.