Great Circle Route
As our band gets ready to return to the states (touchdown 7:55 Friday night PST), just wanted to show you their route home. Most people wouldn't expect a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco to go by the Aleutians, but it does (and right over Japan as well). A curved line is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere (more here).
posted by Anonymous at 1:13 AM
3 Comments:
Actually, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points on a sphere. Unfortunately, airliners can't travel underground.
Yeah, yeah. Everyone's a comedian.
Or a geometrician.
This is also the great circle route for Trans-Pacific shipping. Notice how it apparantly goes out of its way to go right between the rocks, the unbroken gales and swells of the North Pacific and incredibly delciate ecosystems, twice. All thanks to non-euclydian trig and the Mongolian shipping registry.
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