Roger Sinnott wrote: > You could also start out going due east on a "great circle" route, and in > that case, as you note, the path would gradually veer southward.
Indeed. And here's a curious bit of related trivia: If you start due east from *any* latitude and travel a great circle route -- i.e. "straight" -- a distance of one quarter of the Earth's circumference, you *always* end up on the equator. This also works from the North and South Pole, if you allow the convenient fiction that all directions are considered east from the poles. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Mark Gingrich [email protected] San Leandro, California --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
