Why is three the minimum number of stations necessary to locate an epicenter?

Question

HELLP!
if you respond quickly i will choose your answer as best

Answer 1

Triangulation is what the technique is called. With one station the source could come from any direction from under the earth to reach the station. With two you can locate in two dimensions. below and on the plane of the earth's surface. With three you can pinpoint exactly by measuring how fast the waves come to the stations. Geometry basics.

Answer 2

Dear friend I have developed a new concept to locate the epicenter from single seismographic station. But it needs some more research. Many persons have explained to you that why they need the seismograph picture from three station. This concept has become help full for our meteorological department to claim lame excuse for not alerting the people before the Tsunami attack. For issuing the Tsunami warning only two things are needed.If the magnitude is more than 7 in Richter scale and if the epicenter is unknown or suspected to be at see. That is what I did on the day of Tsunami . I sensed the earthquake wave for a total time of 12 minutes. That is evident it is from very big earthquake. I issued the warning to our local T.V.Stations. They ignored my warning.Even now nobody has shown interest to find the fact what scientific knowledge I used to alert. Please visit my slide show .You can see how the three stations data's are used to locate epicenter. My direction finder will help to find the approximate location of epicenter from a single station.This accuracy is more than enough for issuing the Tsunami warning. This is nothing but the electronical version of olden Chinese direction finder.Please visit my slide show at URL
http://asia.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/quake

Answer 3

One station will give you a radius. Two should be able to locate the epicenter (where the two circles touch) but they are not that acurate so three are used to pin the area down (the area of overlap of all three circles). Plus 3 lets you get the depth.

Answer 4

yup... he's right. You need three points of reference because it exists in a three dimensional situation. For instance: you cannot measure the height width and depth of a box without taking at least three measurements.

Answer 5

You need to draw circles around each of the three distances and find where the circles meet at one point.