| @object_holder: Yes, you are thinking about this wrong ;-) Hawaii is very far away from the rest of the US, but its size relative to the rest of the US is very small. Size of Hawaii is 6,470 sq mi, size of the US is 3,717,813 sq mi. That is, Hawaii is 0.17% the size of the US. One way to think about it: "The centroid, or center of mass, of a bounded planar region is the
location at which that region would balance if it were made of a flat
material of uniform density." So imagine a ceramic tile cut out in the shape of the continental US, and another one for Alaska and one for Hawaii. Attach the continental US, Alaska, and Hawaii together with incredibly strong (but incredibly lightweight) pins scaled to the proper distance. Now get the whole thing to balance on the tip of a pin. The place where it balances is the geographic center of the US. For some insight into how this can be done mathematically see: http://www.apprendre-en-ligne.net/blog/docu/centerus.pdf So Hawaii is pulling the center of the US slightly to the southwest, but it's very slight due to the relative insignificance of its size. |