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Speaker 1: Audible dot com is the leading provider of downloadable digital

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Speaker 1: to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question. When

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Speaker 1: I stand at the water's edge and look out over

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Speaker 1: the ocean, how far away is the horizon. One of

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Speaker 1: the funniest things about the ocean is the fact that

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Speaker 1: its surface is curved. We tend to think about water

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Speaker 1: forming large flat sheets, but the surface of a body

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Speaker 1: of water is not actually flat at all. It follows

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Speaker 1: the curvature of the Earth because of the curvature of

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Speaker 1: the planet. The distance between you and the horizon when

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Speaker 1: you look out over the ocean depends on your height

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Speaker 1: above the surface of the water. If your eyes are

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Speaker 1: eight inches above the water, the distance to the horizon

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Speaker 1: is about a mile. If you're six ft tall and

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Speaker 1: standing right at the water's edge, then your eyes are

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Speaker 1: about five and a half feet above the surface. The

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Speaker 1: distance to the horizon is about three miles in that case.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Because

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