It's not just x-y coordinates; it's x-y-z coordinates that you need. The cities are on the surface of the earth, so they are one Earth's radius from its center. Lattitude and longitude give you the rest of the information you need to express the postions of the cities in terms of x-y-zcourtrigrad said:So if the question is: A man flies from Washington to Manilla. Find the magnitude of the displacement vector if the latitudes and longitudes are: 36 N, 70 E, 121 N, 56 W. You would have to convert the latitudes and longitudes into x-y coordinates? How would you do that?
Thanks
The formula for calculating distance using latitude and vectors is the haversine formula. It takes into account the curvature of the Earth and calculates the great-circle distance between two points using their latitudes and longitudes.
To convert degrees to radians, you can use the formula: radians = degrees * (π/180). So if you have a latitude or longitude in degrees, you can convert it to radians by multiplying it by π/180.
Yes, the haversine formula is applicable for any two points on Earth. It takes into account the Earth's curvature and gives a more accurate distance calculation compared to other formulas that assume a flat Earth.
Distance refers to the total length between two points, regardless of direction. Displacement, on the other hand, takes into account the direction of the movement and gives the straight-line distance between two points.
To calculate the distance between multiple points, you can use the Pythagorean theorem. First, calculate the distance between the first two points. Then, use that as the hypotenuse for the next calculation, and continue until you have calculated the distance between all the points. Finally, add all the distances together to get the total distance traveled.