No no, there's no limit

[webofevil]

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, one of the many things that was changed forever was the notion of airspace. Before then, it had been safe to assume that the space above a country simply belonged to that country; suddenly, with wealthy nations able to sling their technology overhead at will, it turned out there was a natural boundary after all, somewhere before the oxygen ran out. The exact boundary remains undefined in international law, which is probably just as well. One country in particular would vigorously resist such a law, because apparently it has still not even accepted the principle that there is any upper limit to its airspace. That country is Norway.

No, it isn’t. It is, of course, France. The country apparently believes it extends infinitely upwards. Best of all for fans of Gallic sophistication and blowing up boats belonging to environmental protestors, the spin of the Earth’s axis and the shape of its orbit mean that there is by now [very probably] no part of the universe that has not, technically, been French.


Fig. 1: Infinite France

Comments

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Pedantically I should mention that, in that image, the airspace doesn't go straight up: it tightens, and its "straightupness" is an illusion. Going straight up from a spherical surface in fact requires that very "spreading out" you mention.

If you took off from the French border and travelled vertically for 200km, taking the average width of France to be something like w=821.49km (area = 674,843km² (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France)), the beam would be around 13km away: radius of earth r = 6378.1km; w x (1+200km/r) = approx w + 25.8km.

This senseless nitpick brought to you by Google and my dim and distant knowledge of the sine rule.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Don't mind me. I get autistic and a bit monomanic when I have low blood-sugar. Now I've had my dinner all I can think of is how cute that dog icon looks with that nose.

... I can't believe I really googled for the square root of the area of France.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

> Going straight up from a spherical surface in fact requires that very "spreading out" you mention

You are, of course, entirely right. I have modified the illustration in the journal entry and hereby reproduce the original, erroneous illustration for the sake of clarity.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

There's nothing clear about France. Sneaky buggers, with their onions and shrugs.