this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Why'd they go that way? They could have gone the other way and the line would have still been technically straight, but the route looks like it would have been shorter.
Because going in that route would make it touch land which in the twitter post it says straight line without touching land
What land would it touch?
India. You would have to set off somewhat perpendicular to the Indian coastline to be perfectly straight.
For some reason I don't think this is true.
A straight line connecting two things does not necessarily have to connect to said things perpendicular to their border.
Not to mention, India's coastline is very much not straight on a local scale. You're bound to find a place where it turns perpendicular to the journey close to the theoretical starting point anyway.
I've always thought Australia was a trouble maker.
The picture was about sailing the longest direct line.
It's not the longest anyway, but that's what it was about. Technically one could sail infinitely many times around Antarctica in a straight line.
No, that's not Earth's great circle, you'll be turning slightly. It only seems straight on most map projections because they want latitudes to be horizontal.
Well, I stand corrected. I guess we'll need to wait for the ice on the North pole to melt before we can make a more stupid voyage.
It would, however, seem like a straight line to whoever was on the boat, because they'd be traveling due west the whole time, and the course corrections they'd have to make to keep going west would look the same as course corrections needed to account for wind, ocean currents, etc.