Important: The
Cache is not at the above Co-Ordinate, it will lead you to the
entrance of a school. You have to work out the actual co-ordinate
from the clues below!
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In the middle
of the night, amateur astronomers Alex and Ben were watching the
stars near the Andromeda galaxy, when they saw a flying saucer
coming from there and appeared silently high over Singapore. It
beamed down an object.
Alex, at
Cosy Bay (GCRJGF) observes that the
flying saucer on a True Bearing of 22º 4.183’ from his
position.
At the same
time, Ben at Bintan Trail (GC93B3)
observes that the flying saucer on a True Bearing of 294º
58.964’ from his position.
(True Bearings
are directional observations measured from Geographical North, also
known as True North, in clockwise direction. e.g. North is 0º, East is 90º, South is 180º, West is
270º)
Before Alex and
Ben could raise the alert, the flying sauce disappeared into the
night sky leaving nothing except for the object and observations of
Alex and Ben.
Alex and Ben
wanted to find the object.
“Luckily,
our positions are not too far apart. We could take our region of
the earth as a plane and solve the location of the alien object by
geometrical method. Remember, the Golden Triangle case
(GCE082)?” said Ben to Alex when they meet the next
day.
Ben and Alex start to work immediately with charts, protractor and
ruler, drawing straights lines from Cosy Bay and Bintan
Trail.
Try as they
may, Alex and Ben could not lay their hands on a protractor that
measure better that 0.5 of a degree. Slowly, they begin to realize
that looking for the object may be a little more difficult than
they thought.
“Why are
you grinning, Ken” said Alex to his teenage son, noticing for
the first time his son is watching him with the widest smile on his
face.
“Dad,
would you reward me with an iPod if I
help to solved the problem?” said Ken. “OK, give it a
try” said Alex, already at his wits end.
“If you
represent the Longitude with X and the Latitude with
Y. Then the
straight lines you have drawn on the charts could be converted to 2
linear equations. The intersection of the lines is just the
solution of the 2 simultaneous equations. With calculator you could
achieve any accuracy you wanted without been constrained by
protractors” said Ken.
“Ah!!”
exclaimed Alex and Ben, suddenly seeing the light.
Ken collected
his reward and headed for Sim Lim
Square.
Alex and Ben
were still punching on the calculator and scribbling the X’s
& Y’s on paper, when Ken returned sporting his brand-new
iPod.
“Dad, you
should consider buying me a note-book computer for my school work.
Besides, it is useful
for
you
too. Instead of solving simultaneous equations on paper, just enter
those equations as matrices in Excel and you could obtain the
solution with a few keystrokes using the built-in matrix
functions” said Ken.
Alex glares at his son.
Would you join in the hunt?
Airplanes and copters circled in sky. Are they in the hunt
too?
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There are 2 small time-pieces in the cache.
Take one if you like and leave the other for the next person.
It is rated 2 in difficulty as you have to work out the actual
Co-Ordinate.
You can check your solution for this puzzle on this link:
CHECK ANSWER