Equatorial belt

A snug-fitting belt is placed around the Earth's equator. Suppose you added an extra 1 meter of
length to the belt, held it at a point, and lifted until all the slack was gone. How high above the
Earth's surface would you then be? That is, find h in the diagram below.

Assume that the Earth is a perfect sphere of radius 6400 km, and that the belt material does not
stretch. An approximate solution is acceptable.

Solution to puzzle 4: Equatorial belt

In the diagram below, the belt meets the Earth at a tangent, and therefore the angle between the
belt and a radius is 90°. Consider two lines: one joining the center of the Earth to the high point
of the rope; the other joining the center of the Earth to one of the points at which the belt meets
the Earth. Let x be the angle subtended, in radians, between the two lines. Let a be the distance
from the high point of the rope to a point at which the belt meets the Earth.
The length of the belt not in contact with the Earth is 2a. The corresponding circular arc length
is r · 2x.

Let d be the extra length added to the belt: 1 meter in our example.
Then 2a = 2rx + d.
Hence a = rx + d/2, and so a/r = x + d/2r.

We also have, tan x = a/r.

Therefore tan x = x + d/2r.

Given numerical values for d and r, this equation can be solved for x to any required degree of
accuracy using the Newton-Raphson Method, enabling us to calculate h. Instead, we will pursue
an approximate solution for small values of d = extra belt length.

Assume d/2r is very small, as it is for d = 1, r = 6,400,000.

Then tan x x, and so x is small.

The Maclaurin series for tan x is: x + x3/3 + ...

Hence x + x3/3 x + d/2r, and so x3 3d/2r.

We also have h = r(sec x - 1).

At this point, we could substitute values for d and r, and calculate x3, and thereby h. However,
we will continue with an approximate solution, to determine the general expression for h in terms
of r and small d.
The Maclaurin series for sec x is: 1 + x2/2 + ...
(The cube root of 3d/2r is of the order of 0.01 when d = 1, so this approximation is still
acceptable.)
Therefore h rx2/2.
And so h (r/2) · (3d/2r)2/3.

Simplifying, h k · r1/3 · d2/3, where k = (3/2)2/3/2 0.65518535.

Since the Earth's radius is a constant, we see that h is proportional to d2/3.

For d = 1, r = 6,400,000, we obtain h 121.6 meters.

Remarks

Applying the Newton-Raphson Method to f(x) = tan x - x - d/2r = 0, yields the solution
x = 0.0061654989, from which h = 121.64473 m, both correct to 8 significant figures.

The above approximate solution, h (3/2)2/3/2 · 6,400,0001/3 · d2/3, is accurate to within 0.1% for
extra belt lengths of up to about 2.3 km. The table below gives further illustrations, correct to
8 significant figures.

Approximate and exact solutions

Extra belt length (m) Approximate height (m) Exact height (m) Percentage difference
0.001 1.2164404 1.2164405 -0.0000056628017
0.01 5.6462162 5.6462177 -0.000026460023
0.1 26.207414 26.207446 -0.00012284293
1 121.64404 121.64473 -0.00057020334
2 193.09788 193.09962 -0.00090513744
5 355.68933 355.69526 -0.0016672651
10 564.62162 564.63656 -0.0026465916
20 896.28095 896.31860 -0.004201135
50 1650.9636 1651.0914 -0.0077382741
100 2620.7414 2621.0633 -0.012283168
200 4160.1676 4160.9789 -0.019496863
500 7663.0943 7665.8469 -0.035907446
1000 12164.404 12171.340 -0.056987112
 Approximate and exact solutions

Extra belt length (m) Approximate height (m) Exact height (m) Percentage difference
2000 19309.788 19327.265 -0.090430158
5000 35568.933 35628.234 -0.16644292
10000 56462.162 56611.585 -0.26394511
20000 89628.095 90004.599 -0.41831634
50000 165096.36 166373.69 -0.76774618
100000 262074.14 265292.26 -1.2130464
200000 416016.76 424123.55 -1.9114198
500000 766309.43 793794.84 -3.4625335
1000000 1216440.4 1285617.5 -5.3808434
2000000 1930978.8 2104894.1 -8.2624275
5000000 3556893.3 4142952.5 -14.145932
6400000 4193186.2 5005072.4 -16.221268
10000000 5646216.2 7106259.6 -20.545878