Great Circles on Mercator's Chart

Originally designed for use in nautical navigation, Mercator's projection is a map of the Earth's surface on which straight lines, called rhumb lines, represent a course of constant compass heading. On the surface of a sphere, however, such rhumb lines are not the shortest distance between two points. Rather, the shortest distance between two points is a great circle, whose shape is shown as the red line on this map. Move the locators to different points and the map will update to show the path of the great circle and the distance between the points in statute miles.

 
Powered by Wolfram Mathematica
Give us your feedback
Give us your feedback

Source page:




 often  occasionally  never

Note: Please do not include anything you consider confidential or proprietary. Your message and contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback, but will not otherwise be published or distributed.
Privacy Policy »

Note: To run this Demonstration you need the free
Mathematica Player
or Mathematica 7+
Download or upgrade to Mathematica Player 7
I already have Mathematica Player or Mathematica 7+