User talk:Mdekok3000
The approximate distance between the two locations on the planet can be determined with their geographic coordinates and this formula
The radius r in this instance is the radius of the earth. The units that the final distance d is measured in is the same as that you used for the radius.
The formula above is not 100% accurate. That would be impossible, because the earth is not a perfect sphere and the exact radius of the earth is not known. The radius of the earth has been estimated to be about 6,378.135 km (3,963.189 mi; 3,443.917 nm).
Derivation of the Formula
[edit]First, all you should have are the sets of coordinates. The latitudinal angle between each location is and the longitudinal angle is .
If you were to slice a thin layer of the earth out at the equator, you would have a circle. To find the arc length on a circle given an angle and the radius, the following formula can be used to find the latitudinal and longitudinal distances
These distances also form the legs of a right triangle on a flattened surface. To use this formula, your angles must be in radians. To convert the angles from degrees to radians the concept
will work.
Since the following equations summarizing the above equations are the formulas for the lengths of legs of a right triangle
the distance formula will give the length of the hypotenuse, or the geographic distance between each location.
Earth Distance Formula
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Nuvola_apps_important_yellow.svg/48px-Nuvola_apps_important_yellow.svg.png)
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