Polar bears on the move

Madam, - In Prof Reville's very enjoyable and amusing "Under the Microscope" last Thursday (July 17th) he stated "the only place…

Madam, - In Prof Reville's very enjoyable and amusing "Under the Microscope" last Thursday (July 17th) he stated "the only place on earth where a bear can go equal distances south, west and north and end up where he started is the North Pole". This is not quite correct.

The same or another bear could go to any point on a very carefully chosen line of latitude a little more than a kilometre north of the South Pole, call it Point A. Point A is chosen so that it is exactly one kilometre due north of another point, call it Point B, which is on a line of latitude exactly one kilometre in circumference. The bear could then travel one kilometre south from Point A to Point B, one kilometre west to end up back at Point B and then one kilometre north returning to point A.

With the lack of bears at the South Pole our bear would have to travel from its normal habitat to participate in this charade and therefore could be white, brown or black and in the case of the latter two, probably blue with the cold!! - Yours, etc,

DAVID A LUKE,

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Sydney Parade Avenue,

Dublin 4.