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Competition Five
How come Max and Rosie's rings don't weigh the same? It's another chance to win a bona fide MiW lab coat signed by the guys, so get your brain cells zinging on this problem.
Rosie is away at summer camp and calls home. She gets her brother who boasts about a gold ring that their grandma just gave him. But Rosie informs him that grandma gave her a similar ring last year. Max insists that his is worth more because it's heavier.
They decide to test it. When they put their rings on the measuring scales the mass appears to be the same. However, Max insists that even though their mass is the same his still weighs more and so is more valuable.
Bizarrely, Max is right, at least about the rings having different weights. How can this be?
This competition is now closed.
Answer - During their phone conversation, Rosie is standing closer to the Equator than Max. Earth isn’t completely spherical - its rotation makes it bulge around the Equator. And because gravity increases the closer you are to a mass, gravity is very slightly less at the equator than it is at the poles.
