Imagine that the earth is a perfect sphere, and that a metal wire is wrapped around its equator, fitting snugly against the surface. Now imagine that we cut this wire in one spot and splice in an additional 100 meters of wire. We then take up the slack by using posts to raise the wire an equal distance all the way around the earth.

1: How high above the surface of the earth will the wire be? How did you calculate that?

2: What if the original object is a basketball? What if it's Jupiter? Then what happens?