hey, i am having a lot of trouble with a question on latitudes/longitudes and distances travelled.
i know the latitude and longitude of 2 points on earth.
apparently, early navigators could only determine their latitude, so they tended to sail to the desired latitude then head east or west.
suppose i do this travelling from plymouth (latitude 50° 47' N, longitude 4° 05' W) to miami beach (latitude 25° 47' N, longitude 80° 17' W)
so i head south from 50° to 25° then head west. i worked this out as being 6050 nautical miles, could somebody tell me if this is correct??
but anyway, the main problem i have is, what if i headed west first from the more northerly point, then turned and headed south, would this be the same distance??????
thinking about it, i'd say its a shorter route, but i dont know how to back this up with calculations. can anybody give me a hand with this??
cheers
2007-10-18
10:29:36
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3 answers
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asked by
fpa06mr
5