Dear reader, it is quite possible that I wrote about this before, but it is always nice to point it out again. Anything that you type into the search field on the right hand side, ends up in a log file. I check the log file now and then, just to see if anybody might be looking for something. Some users arrive here from search engines and look straight for little kittens, or roosters or combination of both. Some try to speak to the search field in plain English, and look for pictures of little kittens, roosters, or various combinations of both. Some take the call to action quite seriously and look for themselves. ("me" appeared several times in the last few days... I do not really know who you are, my dear. Please look for your full name, address, phone number. You might want to check if I posted your Credit Card number by typing... no that's a bad joke, don't.)
I also do not know:
2003.11.10 22:51:30
Search: query for 'where did thomas adams live'

2003.11.10 22:52:19
Search: query for 'where did thomas adams live'

I will however try to answer the following question(s).

2003.11.13 17:45:57
Search: query for 'how long will it take to go around the world'
2003.11.13 17:46:33
Search: query for 'how long will it take to go around the world'
2003.11.13 17:49:17
Search: query for 'what is the sound to go around the world'
2003.11.13 17:53:32
Search: query for 'to travel the speed of sound , how long will it take to go around the world'
(It took our seeker seven minutes and thirty five seconds to ask this interesting set of questions...)
Well, what is the sound to go around the world?... And how long will it take for it to get around the world?... I thought I could find a really simple answer to that... just divide 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers) by the speed of sound (which is 340.29 m / s)... but then I realized that there is so much more that needs to be considered... Take a look at all the factors I almost forgot.... So even though the simplistic answer would be that the time needed at sea level around the equator would be ... almost 33 hours... (no way, really, this long?) and that the time it would take for the same sound to travel just a little deeper, in water, would be about 8 hours, (The speed of sound in water is about 1500 m/s!)... these answers must be wrong...
If the same sound had to travel around the world outside of the atmosphere... then it would take it exactly 24 hours... because sound does not travel in a vacuum... (imagine how loud the sun would be...) so the sound would just wait in one place for the earth to turn... the sound would travel by not moving... hmm...
But wait, does this mean that we should calculate earth rotation with the other equations as well?... I am clearly confused, can not solve a simple mathematical problem... and I guess I will just need to go to somebody's blog and type into the search field:
"How long would it take an object, moving at the speed of sound, to travel around the world, and what would happen if the object were actually a sound, an informed shockwave, and it traveled through environments of different media with different density, maybe even with different temperature?...
Hmm... we all have these really powerful calculating machines in front of us... I wonder how long it might take to get some real answers... (Or are we asking a really silly question?)