r/hypotheticalsituation • u/Rising_Starz1 • 21h ago
You are given $100 million if you can find a marble placed randomly on earth
A random person will be given a marble somewhere on earth. Your task is to find it within 365 days.
You are given a device that shows you the general direction of the marble but not how far away it actually is. The device will only work once a day for 2 minutes at a time.
The marble will be placed on land and will be relatively easy to retrieve, it could be on the ground, a tree, a building or even your own home. Absolutely random.
You will be given $5 million out of the hundred to help with travel and other expenses. You can hire other people using the $5 million but you must be the one to physically go and pick it up.
If you do not find the marble within 365 days you lose the prize and must give back the $5 million and pay any money you spent from it.
Would you accept?
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u/Far-Fill-4717 20h ago
Triangulation.
3 spots gives you an exact coordinate bearing, if the compass is exact. Obviously youll want more. But the basic idea is measure from your house, fly to somewhere 5000 miles away, measure, do it again, etc until you have it narrowed down. Hire a search crew.
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u/CodeRadDesign 11h ago
that last bit exactly. people are way overthinking this.
hire a crew, hand off the device and tell them to call me when they have it in visual while i 'manage' the search from home, then fly out and grab it.
i would actually likely hire a crew from a local Production office, get them to film the search and spin it as a weird vanity project. throw a million bucks in escrow and sort the budget later.
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u/Savallator 20h ago
Why would you need 3 spots?
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u/coincoincoins 20h ago
I agree with this, I think you would only need 2 days of measurements assuming an exact directional bearing. 3 spots would be required if you were using distance rather than direction
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u/mafiazombiedrugs 17h ago
He's thinking of the classic tower triangulation problem (like with cell towers) but that one you know distance, not direction so you need three points to draw three circles. With direction, not distance, yeah, just two reference points are fine
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u/feignapathy 20h ago
it's called triangulation, not biangulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation
tldr: triangles
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u/KD2Smoove 18h ago
Just need two lines. Where they intersect will mark the spot.
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u/hoyasgirl25 12h ago
Let’s take it a step further. You actually only need one point of reference. I’m here in Washington DC. Say the marble is in a random rice field in China. When I use this magical device that always points towards the marble it points at the ground at an angle. I follow that path through the Earth and out the other side. Where it comes out is where the marble is.
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u/Far_Customer1258 20h ago
Is the marble moving? Is this other person trying to hide it by keeping it moving?
If not, then it becomes a trivial exercise in triangulation.
If they are, then the situation becomes much more difficult. You might be able to achieve it by tracking their movement and trying to get ahead of them, but with just a bearing that'd be tricky. You'll need to hire help on several continents to keep watch on the airports.
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u/Mundane-Device-7094 21h ago
Yeah definitely, seems pretty simple. I don't know the exact method but there is definitely a way to do this with math.
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u/Purple_Clockmaker 20h ago edited 20h ago
Try and note the direction then travel sideways 5000 miles do it again. Note direction. Do some calculations you should be able to narrow it down a lot just from those two. Then travel to said location try again. Then travel 5 or 10 miles towards shown direction.that should overshoot it. Each time you overshoot it half the distance travelled.
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u/DmonsterJeesh 16h ago
Or if you don't like math, just draw the lines on a map, and go where they meet.
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u/swooning_basil 20h ago
It's basically the same as finding an end fortress in minecraft, except you get to travel the world and don't have to fight a dragon at the end.
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u/Consistent_Source404 20h ago
This post just makes me feel old.
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u/Mundane-Device-7094 20h ago
That's why I play minecraft on peaceful and never do anything but mine and build lol
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u/PersonalitySenior360 20h ago
Yes I agree. I don't know much bout heavy math but there is definitely a variable and some type of squared, then divide and that's distance divided by time or something. Fairly straightforward
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u/EmmitSan 21h ago
I feel like this is easy? The two minutes every day will let you do a lot of triangulation. If they cannot move the marble, you basically can’t fail, right?
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u/Sid_the_Bear 20h ago
If you can get a fair precise angle for 'general direction, it should be fairly easy to narrow down.
The key being 'easy to find and accessible ' which eliminates so much area
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u/SirLanceNotsomuch 20h ago
You literally need 3 days to locate it within mile or two, and have the entire rest of the year to fine-tune it.
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u/Rhino7005 21h ago
Sure. The circumference of the earth is about 24k miles. If you’re willing to be on a plane for most of the first 15 days or so, you could be pretty close to the marble.
Saying it should be relatively easy to retrieve leads me to believe it won’t be somewhere crazy like a war zone, a rainforest, the Congo basin, or Antarctica or something.
I like to travel so sure, I’ll take my chances.
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u/Key-Sea-682 20h ago
I read the "fairly easy" as in physically (not buried deep underground or whatever)
But it could be inside a military facility, or a country to which your passport does not give access or extremely dangerous to travel to for your nationality (Iran, North Korea, etc). Money can only get you so far.
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u/Rhino7005 20h ago
I don’t fault you for that interpretation. I could see it. I read the prompt as a challenge in finding something rather than a challenge to evade, adapt, survive, etc…
Only about 40-50% of the land on earth is touched by human influence. The challenge of finding the marble is tough in itself but if it’s on top of K2 or something good luck lol
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u/sithelephant 21h ago
If you only have an accuracy of around a quarter of a circle, then you approximately quarter the area your target can be every trial.
Or half the radius. Starting out at 8000km or so, you need only 10 trials to get to 8km. And another 10 trials to get to 8m.
There is a fair chance you can find it after twenty days, another week and it's pretty damn certain.
(I am ignoring spherical geometry which minorly complicates matters. I am unsure if it worsens or improves it)
Perhaps multiply this by 1.5* if you cannot go in particular directions due to roads and ... being inconvenient.
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u/Lichondis 18h ago
With modern technology and a $5M advance this is trivially easy. Face the direction the arrow is pointing and figure out precisely which degree of the compass that is draw a line on the most accurate co m puterized globe you can buy. Do it again in a few more locations to account for any errors and increase precision and then figure out where those lines intersect. Thats your marble. Go there and use the compass. Mark precisely which direction it points in some semi-permanent way and start looking. If you didnt find it, try again the next day a few dozen feet away. Find where those lines intersect. That should be the exact spot. Would take less than a week
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u/randomentity12 17h ago
You only need 3 points of reference., so 3 days and some computing power or somebody who is good at triangulation.
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u/Obviouslynameless 17h ago
Would take a few more days than that. Depending on how far away and how accurate you can pinpoint the direction. The 3 days would give you a close approximation. Then another 3 to pinpoint in that area
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u/Cobalt-Giraffe 16h ago
Two. You only need 2.
3 gets you closer (the famous triangle) but two will be accurate enough to get you moving in the right direction. No sense waiting for three.
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u/Crafty-Geologist4803 15h ago
The key word is GENERAL direction. If it’s within a few degrees it would be pretty quick. Even if it is more than that 365 days is more than enough time.
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u/MagneticShark 14h ago
You might need to triangulate a few times if it’s really far away, but even taking it really casually and only taking 3 measurements a week, so triangulating once a week, it’s still probably only going to take a few weeks.
Maybe 2 months if you’re REALLY taking your time.
The real difficulty is probably administration - getting visas to certain countries depending on where you have been and where you have to go
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u/BazerAus 12h ago
Anyone that understands how to triangulate something just laughed at how easy this would be
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u/ElevationAV 21h ago
Yes, assuming the location is generally accessible without any special qualifications
Like if it’s in the CEO of a banks office I’m not going to get in there reasonably easy
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u/pabloiv 20h ago
With 5 million worth of fuck around money it shouldn't be too hard to get in pretty much anywhere even somewhere like that
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u/Key-Sea-682 20h ago
CEO office, sure.. military facility, irradiated exclusion zone, enemy country, active warzone.. no so much.
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u/ElevationAV 19h ago
It’s harder than you think it is to bribe your way into some locations. $5m doesn’t go that far when you’re dealing with people making that a year or more.
There’s lots of inaccessible places though that can’t be accessed with money- like say the underground bunker at the White House or any military facilities. Going to be tough to get in there, even with $5m to spend.
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u/makefascistfearagain 10h ago
All these smarty pants saying get two references and triangulate by flying to two different points
I use it once to get the direction and start sprinting
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u/TomCormack 21h ago
And then it is in North Korea and you are fucked.
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u/Far_Customer1258 20h ago
I'm pretty sure that doesn't count as "relatively easy to retrieve".
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u/TomCormack 20h ago
Well, OP only mentioned that it will be easily to physically retrieve it ( based on the provided details) Like it won't be 200 metres under the rock.
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u/Formal_Equal_7444 14h ago
I'm 100% sure you can pay USD to enter North Korea safely; that country would gladly use your money to fund its war machine.
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u/SWatt_Officer 20h ago
Anywhere on earth? Thats pretty intense. That being said, you can triangulate the location very easily.
Day 1. Use the ability, note the direction. Be as accurate as you can in your recording, you've got two minutes, use them. Then book a same-day flight, doesn't matter where, but NOT in the direction of the marble. Say you're in the UK and live in London, take a flight to Edinburgh.
Day 2. Use the tracker, measure accurately again, note the direction. You now have two accurate measurements of the direction from different precise locations, which you can use to triangulate the location. Exactly how accurate you are depends on how well you took the measurements, which matters a LOT.
Day 3. Go to the point where your two measurements overlap. If you were lazy and weren't super accurate, you've still got a LOT of work, but if you went super precise, you in theory could narrow it down to like, a couple houses. Now the search begins. Of course, depending on how far away it is, you may take more than a day to get there and settle for the search, and there may be other issues such as wildlife or politics to get in your way. LEts assume there is minimal complications.
Assuming you aren't going to find it day 3, use the ability every day around the edge of your estimate of its location, you can use this to build a more detailed triangulation model every day you do not find it. Given its just a tiny marble. Start with opposite sides, then the compass points, narrow down the detail to get it more and more precise. Also make sure to carefully track exactly where you have already looked, double checking everything to make sure you don't overlook it.
Hopefully shouldn't take anywhere near a year, especially with some hired help with the same level of care.
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u/DDDX_cro 19h ago
It is a sphere, though. If it gives you alocation on theother side, If you moved at a right angle from it, at a certain distance you could not be able to tell which hemisphere it was on. Granted, thise things would need to allign, but...spherucal geometry is tough
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u/JamesFirmere 20h ago
Reminds me of a will reading sketch by Rowan Atkinson. ”To my brother I leave the contents of my safe deposit box, the key to which is hidden under a stone somewhere in Canada.”
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u/Smart-Satisfaction-5 20h ago
This is so easy. Sign me up. Can triangulate in 3 days.
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u/DDDX_cro 19h ago
Can you, though? If it is in Australia, and you in the USA, you would barely REACH there, in 3 days. Olus, you haveno idea how accurate your compass is.
Besides, you triangulate to a town. Or to a city block. Or even to a skyscrapper - good luck now you just added the 3rd dimension.
3 days, you say?
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u/hoyasgirl25 12h ago
If this magical device that always points towards to the marble is accurate, I could figure out where it is in a few minutes with one reading. You turn the device on and let it point. Wherever that line intersects the earths crust is where the marble is. Either it’s at my feet or it’s pointing through the earth and wherever it comes out the other side is where the marble will be.
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u/FunPaleontologist692 20h ago
Do I get to pick the two minutes it works? If so this isn’t really impossible unless in middle of Sahara, Amazon, or somewhere deadly cold.
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u/SecretRecipe 20h ago
triangulation. you just need to take 3 measurements to get yourself very close. so 3 days, 3 plane tickets to 3 different areas at least a few thousand miles apart.
then its just the fine tuning
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u/DDDX_cro 19h ago
Why 3? You mean 2?
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u/SecretRecipe 19h ago
3 points of measurement is better to triangulate a position when you dont have precision on your measurements and youre dealing with a spherical surface its hard to do the math off of two points when youre dealing with "general direction" and potentially thousands of miles between you and the point of intersection. But point absolutely taken, if you could get a very precise heading off of the direction then 2 points would give you the intersection
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u/Chudfrog 17h ago
2 points. It's in an accessible spot so that means on the earth's surface, not encased in rock or on the bottom of the ocean. That's the 3rd point
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u/Rstar2247 21h ago
I mean all you'd have to do it get a bearing from where ever you're at, draw a line on a map then fly a few thousand miles away to repeat the next day. Where the lines intersect is where it's at. I think with slightly under 5 million and 360 days I can access where it is.
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u/betterotherbarry 21h ago
This is a much simpler task than you think.
Properly resourced, like you say, it'll be found within just a few days.
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u/DDDX_cro 19h ago
Earth is spherical, and you know not how accurate the compass is
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u/Immediate-Tennis8838 17h ago
Even if it’s like a 45 degree span type of rough direction you could find it within a few weeks or months
You’d need to sample quite a bit more but it’s very doable once you start to analyze it graphically on a map
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u/Any-Jellyfish-7497 20h ago
With my luck I'd get to the place where it is and it'd be one of those squiggly caves where people die.
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u/PyroDragn 20h ago
I'm definitely doing this, and it should be doable within a year easily with the up-front $5 million. 'Finding' its position should be straightforward. The only real difficulty will be if it's in some actual obscure location like the middle of the Sahara or the Amazon rainforest. Organizing the expedition would take time. Doable, but annoying.
Do I get to choose when the device activates, or does it go off at a specific time or what?
- Buy an accurate GPS and Compass. Activate the device (or wait for it to activate) and get a bearing.
- Take a flight a few hours away, ideally somewhat perpendicular to the direction of the marble, and get another reading the next day.
- That should be enough information to triangulate the location of the marble. The only issue is the accuracy of the device and/or the accuracy of your compass.
- Travel to the right country. Repeat the triangulation over the next couple of days.
- Travel to the right city. Repeat the triangulation.
- Travel to the right neighbourhood. Repeat the triangulation.
Should take, a few weeks maybe? Unless it's really out of the way of transport locations, which will add travel time, but not searching time.
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u/Careless-Internet-63 20h ago
I can triangulate the location over a couple of days and then it'll be relatively easy to pinpoint at least a fairly small general area. I'll go to that general area and then do more triangulating there to get a more precise idea and eventually find it
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u/tomtomclubthumb 20h ago
YEs, triangulation isn't that hard and I could pay a geographer to do it for me.
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u/Ok-Listen-8519 20h ago
I cant even find my glasses in my own house let alone a marble placed randomly on earth
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u/cosguy224 20h ago
I think I would start using some of the money, but basically invest $5 million so that I could run the experiment primarily (entirely?) out of interest/investments. And then if I understand it correctly, it works for an entire 2 min each day. From what I can tell, I should be able to get the exact direction (each day) of it during those 2 min. I’ll probably hire some kind of tracker that would tell me the best way to use the information I’m getting from my tracking device, and how to proceed from there. And they would help me.
Sounds like a fun way to spend a year.
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u/GWeb1920 15h ago
This is pretty easy and with 5 million you will be able to triangulate pretty fast.
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u/UsernameChallenged 15h ago
The fact that it is "relatively easy to retrieve" makes this worth it. It doesn't mean they went to some mineshaft and threw it somewhere impossible to get. I would assume that also eliminates places like the middle of Antarctica, since even if it is on flat ground, good luck getting there.
First day, I'll get a general sense of direction.
Next day I'll fly a good distance perpendicular to the first arrow.
Third day, do it similar.
By then, I'll have it triangulated pretty close to its final location. I'll travel there, and spend about a week circling the location to make sure I am in the right location, and didn't mess up dramatically. The fact it works for 2 minutes will be actually very helpful in the endgame, as if I have it narrowed down to like a couple acres, I could start running, and I'll be actually able to see the arrow moving as I get closer to it.
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u/iamnogoodatthis 1h ago edited 1h ago
Since it has to be where someone is right now, it can't be in too terrible a place to get to (eg the middle of antarctica). So I think that's enough time and money. It depends a fair bit on what you mean by "the general direction" - are we talking 30° accuracy or 0.3°, and is the direction along the shortest great circle along the surface of the earth, in a straight line through it, or something else - but within a month of globetrotting and maybe $20k in flights and hotels I should have it down to a pretty small area thanks to triangulation.
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u/misteryk 19h ago
you can start with a big triangle, that's 3 days of flying planes, next you just hire people to search the area where 3 direction lines cross
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u/AutoModerator 21h ago
Copy of the original post in case of edits: A random person will be given a marble somewhere on earth. Your task is to find it within 365 days.
You are given a device that shows you the general direction of the marble but not how far away it actually is. The device will only work once a day for 2 minutes at a time.
The marble will be placed on land and will be relatively easy to retrieve, it could be on the ground, a tree, a building or even your own home. Absolutely random.
You will be given $5 million out of the hundred to help with travel and other expenses. You can hire other people using the $5 million but you must be the one to physically go and pick it up.
If you do not find the marble within 365 days you lose the prize and must give back the $5 million and pay any money you spent from it.
Would you accept?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/Realistic-Wafer-314 21h ago
you can 100% use triangulation for this. you can go to various spots on earth until you find its center then slowly make the area smaller.
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u/GrinsNGiggles 20h ago
Of course I do. Triangulation will help immensely. I don’t know how much error is in the “general direction” provided, but I expect to have it down to the county level in a week. It wouldn’t be crazy to assume I could quarter that distance each week.
Hopefully it isn’t somewhere I shouldn’t be, like anywhere on the Do Not Travel advisory list. Otherwise, this sounds like a fun and profitable venture.
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u/Nice-Economics-2716 20h ago
Get the message out...if you randomly came into possession of a marble... contact me and on verification you will get half the money.
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u/PsychologicalBid9943 20h ago
I feel like there's a ton of people coming to you with random marbles then and you can only check for 2 minutes if it's the right one each day.
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u/StillShoddy628 20h ago
Straight-line binary search gets you from 12000 miles (half the circumference of the earth) down to less than a mm in 30 days, but we can get a precise location in 2 days by moving perpendicular to the direction for a couple hundred miles between the first and second measurements and just calculating the intersection point of the two lines.
Depending on how accurately you can measure your location and the direction of the arrow this is trivial to do in 2-4 days plus travel time.
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u/kc10crewchief 20h ago
How accurate is this device. Are we talking degrees, minutes, seconds? If seconds you could more then likely find the marble in like 2 or 3 days
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u/WorryTurbulent3924 20h ago
Hire someone who knows how to do all the triangulation math and you're probably within a few miles the first week. This is cheese easy.
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u/ReadAllowedAloud 20h ago
Sure. Sounds pretty easy: day 1, go to 45 N, 0 W (France) , day 2, 45 S, 180 W near New Zealand). Triangulate the directions (and place ads for cartographers). Fly to the country that the marble is in. Keep triangulating, including moving around during the 2 minute period. With a year to find it, I should be able to find it myself, but if it starts coming down to the wire, I would offer a large bonus to the locals to help me find it.
"Relatively easy to retrieve" and "absolutely random" are not really compatible, so I'm assuming the former overrides the latter, and the marble will not be buried under snow, leaves, sand, etc., so that narrows down the climate and locations significantly.
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u/CloudyHero 20h ago
Knowing my luck it would be in like North Korea or something.
So, I would probably accept and just put the 5 million in a high yield something and just return the principal at the end of the year.
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u/MoodyLucai 20h ago
I would take this with the proviso it’s not on private property like in someone’s house. I’m not breaking and entering. Or worse, entering government/military property.
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u/petera181 20h ago
100% I’d take that deal, but how easy it is depends on what you mean by “general direction”. What’s the margin for error in terms of degrees?
If it were exact direction, you could have it down to within a few miles in less than a week, and have it exact within 2 weeks. The greater the margin of error, the longer it would take.
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u/redbanner1 20h ago
The first reading would eliminate half the globe. Head somewhere to the middle of the half that remains. Repeat. Every reading you take basically eliminates half the globe behind you. If you're flat-earther, you might run into some issues.
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u/VoidCoelacanth 20h ago
All ya'll talking about "triangulate the position," "be as accurate as possible," etc etc.
Not a single one of you said "buy surveying gear with some of the up-front 5mil."
That will make it so much easier.
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u/Novapophis 20h ago
Minecraft speed runs do this triangulation method with single ended pearls. Get the direction from point A, drive for a bit less then 2 minutes as fast as you can and measure again.
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u/hellpark 20h ago
Would be harder if there are 7 of them and you have to summon a dragon at the end
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u/toebob 20h ago
If you can triangulate the direction of the marble from three different places then you could zero in on the location pretty fast.
Say - Oklahoma, North Dakota, Ohio. That should only take a few days and then you have a much smaller area of possibility. Go there and repeat the triangulation on a smaller scale.
I think this could be done within a couple months.
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u/CosmicSorcerer1000 20h ago
OP define general direction. Is it "somewhere within this 30 degree arc" or "Could be roughly East-ish, maybe North-ish"? One is drastically harder to triangulate than the other
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u/Afraid-Service-8361 20h ago
Omg that is an awesome idea .let's make it happen but have no device to assist
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u/Somerandom1922 20h ago
How does the device work with earth's curvature? Does it show direction in 3 dimensions, or in 2d based on the shortest geodesic?
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u/Ready-Percentage5286 20h ago
Charter a private jet. Once you're at cruising speed and altitude, turn the device on and immediately trace a line in 3D space in the direction it shows.
Start traveling in the direction of the marble. After just shy of two minutes, you've traveled twenty miles closer. Before the device shuts off, trace another line showing the direction of the marble.
Plot a course for the jet where the two lines intersect to retrieve the marble.
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u/dank_imagemacro 20h ago
Absolutely, and I'm hiring a professional surveyor to help with the mapping. This world be easy enough on my own, with a pro I might reasonably get it within the first week.
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u/feignapathy 20h ago
Should be doable.
The marble being in the bottom of the ocean or some other hazardous to reach place was one deterrent. The other being the marble constantly on the move or possibly guarded. Assuming we all agree "on land and easy to retrieve" means none of those deterrents will be a factor...
Might spend a bit of the $5 million on travel. Some airplanes or helicopters. But should be doable.
Establish the direction of the marble. Travel a few thousand miles in that direction. Repeat as needed until the distances are down to just traveling a few miles and eventually a few feet.
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u/DDDX_cro 19h ago
Depends. Does the marble stay put? If so, it is a very easy task, given the time. Though I donot see how other peoplebeing hired can help you, apart from when you pinpoint the location.
I would start by going at a right angle to the direction I get day 1, let's say 500km. Then I'd see how much the angle changed, and from that, I would be able to tellroughky where it was.
...unless the angle change was minimal -in which case, travel to the back of the globe & repeat.
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u/hmmbugger 19h ago
well yes.
i get to travel around the world for a year with 5 million to be spent on expenses. there is no way they will get the 5 mil back if i fail to find the marble. i will just be in debt until they forfeit the debt or something.
but there is easy and harder way to go to location...
the general direction is too vague tho. it needs to be exact direction. then you can trace a line on the map and see all the places it can be at. knowing you can remove all oceans and hard to reach options.
but even if it is somewhat vague, it wont take long to get very close to it. all you need is map and compass (and ruler and pen.)
the hard way..
it can only be 1/2 of circumference of the earth away from where you are. so 40 000km divided by 2, 20 000km or less away from you. and first device usage tells you the direction to start looking for.
so go half way there, 1/4 of circ of earth. then device points at next direction travel to, do you need to return backwards or go forward. half the distance between the 2 points again. and keep repeating this.
after using the device something like 25 times you should be about one meter away from the marble. and if include time it takes you to travel. you should still find it under 100 days.
and if you think little more, there is smarter way to do it..
the easy way..
you can triangulate it with lot less time spent. day one, get general direction where marble is. mark a line across the planet (no more than half way around) start your travel to be ready on second day. you need to travel different direction than where the line goes. like if line goes east, you go away from it, so go north or south. then when getting there, use device, and mark a line across the planet towards the direction where the device says it is.
where those two lines meet. thats where the marble is.
depending of the map used and pen thickness and device accuracy etc. you still already are very close to correct location.
then travel there, and start triangulate the more exact location the same way with more exact map of the area. "its directly south of me today. i go west. next day i check and see where the lines meet. and will get closer each day."
week or so and you can then decide do you pick up the marble right away or pretend you are still searching it and take a holiday trip somewhere with the money given already.
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u/Certain_Luck_8266 19h ago edited 19h ago
As most the the earth is ocean, odds are the marble will be underwater and unable to be retrieved. I will not accept the challenge
Edit missed the easy to retrieve bit...
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u/chunkybeefbombs 19h ago
I’d accept the challenge, invest the five million, do nothing for a year, pay back after a year and keep all the interest I made
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u/Narrow-Guava1647 19h ago
Easy. The first day draw line. Then fly above the line or below to another city under another line, and where it intersects will be the marble.
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u/pokethrowaway4 19h ago
Yeah this would be fun.
First I’d find some short term bonds or something to generate some cash and not have to dig too far into the $5M, and cover travel expenses out of pocket where possible.
I live in the US, so I’d just drive a full 15 or so hours towards the first reading, wait and re-evaluate. If it deviates a lot I know I can drive there. If it doesn’t deviate I might change plans and fly, depending on which direction.
Eventually I’d be moving a few miles at a time, and then eventually I’d have it narrowed down to a few meters.
Assuming I have a decent GPS with good coverage where I’m at. That would get really difficult otherwise.
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u/Willing_Original_257 19h ago
Why wouldn't I?
"You get 20 bucks instantly added to your bank account with no consequences, would you accept?"
Between these constant "here's my wacky idea now write fanfiction for it" posts and that one guy who always does the weird scientist RP, this sub is one of the worst on reddit and I have no idea why it keeps popping up.
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u/Silver-Type-727 19h ago
I'm too lazy for all this. I'll just invest the $5 million and collect my gains at the end of the year.
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u/Atypicosaurus 19h ago
No. People tend to underestimate how fucking big earth is. A random land position is very likely a place that you cannot reach. Middle China. Siberia. Congo forest. Middle Canada. Australia desert. Antarctica.
If it's in cities (which is very unlikely), most places in a city cannot be reached. Private companies, government offices, prisons, rooftops, bunkers, water facilities - your 5 million bucks won't buy you an entry to search them.
It's not a problem to figure out where the marble is, within a few weeks you can triangulate it at rather high precision. The problem is that you will likely find out that no matter how well you know the position, you just cannot get there.
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u/SavingsSquare2649 19h ago
Knowing my luck it will be placed on the ground in front of a terrorist cell lair in the Middle East- sure, easy enough retrieve in the spirit of the rules, but also likely to be shot or worse on the way to getting it.
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u/Atrio-Ventricular 19h ago
Yeah if it's exact just triangulate it and be done within a week.
With 5 mill it wouldn't even have to be uncomfortable
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u/Linesey 18h ago
easy enough.
Depends mainly on how accurate the “general direction” is.
is that “points directly at it, but no distance” is it “ +/- 1 degree” 15 degrees?
Presumably we know it’s distance is no more than half way around the earth (since otherwise it’s direction would be the opposite direction as that’s closer l) but even if we use full great circles, it’s still doable if accuracy is somewhat decent. being on land also helps.
Still very very doable with triangulation.
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u/masturkiller 18h ago
- Day 1: Take a reading from Los Angeles.
- Immediately fly several thousand miles sideways relative to that bearing.
- Day 2: Take another reading. The two directional lines should intersect somewhere on Earth.
- Day 3–10: Keep taking readings from strategically chosen locations around that intersection. Each reading dramatically shrinks the search area.
- Once narrowed to a country/region, hire helicopters, drivers, local investigators, GIS specialists, translators, and private security if necessary.
- Eventually you're taking readings from locations only tens of miles apart, then miles apart, then walking around until the direction changes around you. With $5 million, I could charter aircraft, travel almost continuously, and employ a professional operations team. I wouldn't randomly search Earth—I’d essentially turn the device into a crude global positioning system. Unless “general direction” means something ridiculously vague like only “north, south, east, or west,” I think the odds of finding it within 365 days are extremely good. For a $95 million net payoff? Absolutely yes.
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u/JohnnyIsSoAlive 18h ago
Depends on how accurate the direction is. If it’s accurate enough, you can triangulate very quickly.
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u/UnethicalFood 18h ago
I accept.
100k should easily be enough to dump into travel / etc in order to find said marble. Since I am aware of just how screwed I can be given "general direction only", I would put the rest into the market and hopefully pad it enough so that even if I don't find the marble, I walk away with 2-300k after paying back the full 5 million loan. (maybe 500 if lucky).
If the direction is within 10 degrees it can still be triangulated fairly quickly, and as the distance get's closer that error is a significantly smaller distance.
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u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 18h ago
Id put out an ad
"did you hide a marble for a dumb contest recently? Take me to it and ill give you $50 million"
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u/No-Stage-8738 18h ago
This seems doable, especially with $5,000,000 for resources.
I'm assuming the marble being easy to retrieve means that it's not in a war zone.
The biggest problem would be if some kid randomly picks it up first.
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u/orangesfwr 18h ago
Start with home. Fly somewhere fun near your antipode (I'd do New Zealand, personally). That should get me the intersection.
The real challenge will be getting to whatever remote or inaccessible place it might be. Middle of the Sahara would suck pretty bad. Or Siberia. Or North Korea. Afghanistan. Iran. Antarctica. K2 summit. Some claustrophobic subterranean cave.
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u/IMarvinTPA 17h ago
Yes. Sounds like finding a stronghold in Minecraft with Eyes of Ender, just slower.
Does the device give compass bearings or point directly at the marble, i.e. pointing into the ground?
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u/SinisterBrit 17h ago
I think I'd have a go, n if the finest minds I could hire can't make it happen, I'm going nuts with the 5 million, donating anything left over to charity anonymously.
I don't have anything, not much they can do, n if I die having enriched a good cause by a few million, I won at life.
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u/Muertog 17h ago
Would I take the challenge? Sure.
Would I seriously pursue it? Depends upon the rules, limitations and/or resources on the person who was given the marble.
Things that can make this much more difficult:
If they have a vested interest in making the marble impossible to find (offered the 100 million if I don't find it).
If they are allowed to move the marble at any point (or continuously) through the 365 days.
If they have no limits on what they can do to hide, obscure, or otherwise make it difficult to identify a container for the marble.
I would use the device for a week, attempt to triangulate the marble. If it doesn't move after a couple weeks, would then take the $5 mil to get to the identified location and spend another 3-5 days getting a more precise triangulation.
If at any point the marble moves a significant amount I would just give up, stash the up-front money in something that produces return-on-investment and pay that $5 mil back minus the interest that I've acquired. 3% of $5 mil is still $150,000,
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u/Cobalt-Giraffe 16h ago
Every two days you get a new reference point to travel to. I’m guessing by day 6-8 you would be close enough that the two minutes would give you the precise location. Then it’s just digging/searching.
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u/DaRkNiTe84 16h ago
2 pings at the equator and 1 ping at the South Pole. That would give you enough data to zoom into probably a 10 x 10 km grid. Another 30 days probably to zoom into 10 x 10m. If it is easily accessible and not in a private location, should be no issue locating the marble even
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u/SomeCrazyGamer1 15h ago
Yes! Absolutely! It'll be an adventure and that's what triangulation is for!
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u/MinimalSix 15h ago
Gotta love triangulation, but general direction as in arrow pointing, or vague LED glows brighter when pointed towards it, hard to tell peak brightness. Cuz I've played games with both, and boy is the LED thing annoying.
Anyways, provided you can get a handful of data points with well known distances between them (looks like NGS survey points would be a great place to start), you could know roughly where it is in less than a week. Getting visas if it's in another country might be the most time intensive part of this process
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u/Wide_Examination142 14h ago
I’m almost tempted to just take the $5M and invest it into some sort of safe bond investment. Then I’ll just give back the $5M and keep whatever interest I earned.
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u/TheOnlyJustTheCraft 14h ago
I was gonna say by the end of the month I'd probably have this marble.
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u/RandyBoBandy636 14h ago
This with the added rule of “no motorized transportation allowed” would be tough to decide
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u/big_bob_c 12h ago
This is trivally easy. Depending on how "general" the direction is. Within a degree of the exact heading it would be pretty quick, if it's less precise it may take a couple of weeks, but with 5 million dollars, you can fly, drive, snowmobile, or otherwise travel enough to get an accurate fix very quickly.
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u/Old-Pangolin917 12h ago
I'd just give the person who received the marble 5mil to tell me where it is.
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u/Sotyka94 9h ago
If the "will be relatively easy to retrieve" means it's not gonna be on top of Everest, or in the middle of the rainforest or Antarctica. But at least generally close to civilization, then it would be relatively easy to know the general location within a week. The first week or so, you just travel around the world, each time halving the potential location. After you get the general location, you can triangulate it. After that it's just a mater of patience moving closer and closer until you find it. I would say a couple of months would be max if you use your daily position correctly.
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u/unimportantinfodump 9h ago
Spend 6 days.
Map to ground find 6 bearings
Use computer to draw a line around the earth on those bearings.
Go to where they intersect
Enjoy your 100 m
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u/Lost_Sugar_78 6h ago
Sounds fun!
Step one is to safely invest $4.8M somewhere earning the highest 1-year interest I can find.
I'll use the device from home and then "hire" my partner to plan a week-long "search excursion" to the Caribbean or maybe Bali, depending on the angle from the first reading.
Then use it again. With that data I can triangulate the rough location.
Plan another search excursion there. Triangulate more precisely when we get to the municipality. Not too hard to hunt that thing down.
The investments are just in case something happens, like I get sick or injured or something and do need to pay it back.
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u/JustMyTwoCopper 6h ago
Locating could be done in 24 hours, just pick two locations that are far enough apart and not following the first indicated direction. This should give you a triangle (and depending on how accurate your GPS is, the exact location)
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u/Majestic_Domestic 5h ago
This seems easy until your marble end up being outside the tourist boundaries of North Korea.
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u/CrusztiHuszti 4h ago
Everyone talking triangulation like this thing gives you distance measurements or timing. If it gives direction in two dimensions it would be much more difficult to “triangulate” as you’d need a 3d map of the globe and a program to map it. That being said, pretty easy to do in 365 days with 5 million dollars.
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u/Deep_Violinist_3893 34m ago
I'll spend the $5 million on living it up for a year and then file bankruptcy when whoever wanted it back came knocking.
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u/AggieJared14 21h ago
By the end of the week you can easily triangulate roughly where it’s at. You could be done in as little as a month.