Solution to Elon Musk's Interview Question

Here is the solution to Elon Musk's interview question: If you go 1 mile south, 1 mile west, then 1 mile north and end up at the same spot that you started, where are you on planet earth?

[marina-bby]

I genuinely thought it was more philosophical, like the saying “wherever you go, there you are.”

But thank you for this explanation! I’m not great at maths, but really enjoy listening to the logic of it.

[noel]

2:54 circling clockwise as you are in the video, that's going 1 mile east NOT west.

[Chrisfromthe]

I have been trying to Figure that out for so long and now that makes more sense

[cme]

I found this question intuitive .. don't know why it should be worthy to be asked in an interview but surely entertaining

[ваня]

I don’t understand… so if Earth is a sphere, why can’t we say that north pole is at the different spot? We can just flip the sphere around put our finger somewhere and say that this point is a north pole? Why it is not gonna be exactly the same? Why only at the spot where we imagined the north pole is? Why it couldn’t be at any point on Earth?
Is it because of the fact that Earth is spinning and middle part is wider?

[xkong]

Do you happen to have another channel a couples years ago?

[christinakratochvilova]

This is so interesting. Math has been hard for me to grasp, so this video was great!

[FrankAnzalone]

Your solution is not correct you forgot that you could be on any point of the circle that you're going around the proper answer is infinity squared plus one the first Infinity is the circumference of the circle that one you understood the second Infinity is where you are starting from on that circle and the plus one is the North Pole

[NickolaySheitanov]

This isn’t true for one mile I’m pretty sure has to be longer distances. You have to be at the top tip of the pole the pole as well the pole is a region in the north not a point

[FiroNebule]

This is the answer of people who want to show off. 😝 North Pole forever!

[markrounding]

The south pole solution is not entirely correct, if you draw a dot on each quadrant (0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees, cartesian coordinates) and draw a linecircumference at a tangent to the circle the strating frm an abitrary point 1 mile from the circumference, moving to the 90 dgree point, then depending which way you around the circumference there is only one time you are moving west and that is at the top or bottom points (90 or 270 degrees, leaving these points, you get a resultant, that is starting at 90 moving to 180, 90 is west has a tangent, 180 you are then facing south, 270 you are facing east, and back to 0 you are facing north. It is relative hiw you view the sphere.

[duguesclin]

For me if you say mont blanc.... it s more fun i think. If you put a New parameter (hight) the solution touch the Sky. But another is the ready player one solution you are under à game in a virtuel world

[NickolaySheitanov]

This isn’t true for one mile I’m pretty sure has to be longer distances

[purehitman]

This is incorrect. The world is not a sphere and there is no where on earth with a circumference of 1 Mile.

The north pole is the only solution due to this.