> Take a gander at this map, and you’ll see the red line marking the 50th parallel, a line of equal latitude that runs a full circle around the Earth. Every poi

> Take a gander at this map, and you’ll see the red line marking the 50th parallel, a line of equal latitude that runs a full circle around the Earth. Every point on this line is the same distance from the equator, and the same from the frozen pole. There are 360 degrees in a circle, not 400. 360/8 = 45. Of course, there's some slight variation because the earth isn't an exact sphere, but it doesn't add up to 5 degrees. I'm going to read on, but that's really a very disappointing start. Of course, the alternative explanation is that what they meant was that each of these points has the same distance to the pole and the same distance to the equator as every other point, but the wording doesn't seem to indicate that, and if that was the intent it was a badly written sentence.