Kitty Hawk

<BODY LANG="EN"> <HR><center> <table border=1> <td><img height=36 width=36 alt="" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/previous_fade.gif"></td> <td><A NAME="tex2html17" HREF="../../../classes/Engineering/contents.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="UP" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/up.gif"></A></td> <td><A NAME="tex2html19" HREF="node1.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="NEXT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/next.gif"></A></td> <td><a href="contents-uces-2.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="CONTENTS" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/toc.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="reset.hamlet"><img height=36 width=36 alt="RESET" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/stop.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="copyright.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="COPYRIGHT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/copyright.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="mailto:hamlet@cs.utah.edu"><img height=36 width=36 alt="FEEDBACK" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/feedback.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="http://www.cs.utah.edu/%7Ehamlet/icons.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="ABOUT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/about.gif"></a></td> </table> </center> <HR> <P> <H1>Kitty Hawk</H1> <P> The <A NAME="tex2html5" HREF="http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map/color=1/db=usa/grid=5/ht=5.00/iht=694/iwd=552/lat=37.5/lon=-077.5/proj=rect/river=1/wd=5.00?409,550">Outer Banks</A> is a sand bar extending for hundreds of miles along the east coast of the United States, mostly along the coast of North Carolina. The sand bar is broken by narrow inlets that connect the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the shallow salt water sounds on the west. The result is a chain of long, thin islands, in many places only a few hundred yards wide and a few feet above sea level. <P> The Outer Banks were the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony in 1585 and the Wright Brothers' first powered flight in 1903. It is also known for surf fishing, hazardous navigation, and impressive riptides. <P> The Wright Brothers' flight was made from the highest natural point along the Outer Banks at Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk is a broad sand dune that peaks at 38 feet above Albemarle Sound, which lies due west. In the lesson, we will study the following problem, which involves determining how far out in Albemarle Sound one can see from the summit of Kitty Hawk: <P> <BLOCKQUOTE> You are sitting on top of Kitty Hawk on a calm day with no waves. You are watching a friend swimming across the sound toward the mainland. Because of the curvature of the earth, your friend will eventually disappear across the horizon. How far away (in feet) can your friend get before he disappears from view? </BLOCKQUOTE> <P> As we pursue this problem, we will: <P> <UL> <LI> Gain more experience with the application of the five-step approach to solving computational problems that we introduced in the last lesson. <LI> Learn more about estimating the number of significant digits in an answer. <LI> Study characteristics of the floating-point numbers provided by Maple, other programming languages, and pocket calculators. <P> </UL> <P> Recall that the five steps of our approach to solving computational problems are problem, model, method, implementation, and assessment. We have already stated the problem, and in succeeding sections we will complete the remaining steps. <P> <HR><center> <table border=1> <td><img height=36 width=36 alt="" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/previous_fade.gif"></td> <td><A NAME="tex2html17" HREF="../../../classes/Engineering/contents.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="UP" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/up.gif"></A></td> <td><A NAME="tex2html19" HREF="node1.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="NEXT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/next.gif"></A></td> <td><a href="contents-uces-2.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="CONTENTS" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/toc.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="reset.hamlet"><img height=36 width=36 alt="RESET" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/stop.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="copyright.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="COPYRIGHT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/copyright.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="mailto:hamlet@cs.utah.edu"><img height=36 width=36 alt="FEEDBACK" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/feedback.gif"></a></td> <td><a href="http://www.cs.utah.edu/%7Ehamlet/icons.html"><img height=36 width=36 alt="ABOUT" src="http://www.cs.utah.edu/icons/latex2html/about.gif"></a></td> </table> </center> <HR><P><ADDRESS> <I><A NAME="tex2html1" HREF="http://www.cs.utah.edu/~zachary">Joseph L. Zachary</A> <BR> <A NAME="tex2html2" HREF="http://www.cs.utah.edu/~hamlet">Hamlet Project</A> <BR> <A NAME="tex2html3" HREF="http://www.cs.utah.edu/">Department of Computer Science</A> <BR> <A NAME="tex2html4" HREF="http://www.utah.edu/ HTML_Docs/UofUHome.html">University of Utah</A></I> </ADDRESS> </BODY>