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What's something that's taken for granted that occasionally makes you think, wait wtf? (feddit.uk)

submitted 9 hours ago by manicdave@feddit.uk to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For example, Britain's national mapping organisation's brand is associated in our national consciousness with going to a small shop in a quaint village to get a map showing how to walk up a mountain. It's called Ordnance Survey. If that sounds like Artillery Research to you, that's because the project started because the king wanted to know how to accurately bomb Scotland.

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[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Even weirder is that the most efficient way to steer them is not in straight lines. Because the most efficient way to traverse a sphere is on a slight curve.

Get a string and pick two points along the equator on a globe. Stretch the string tight. It’ll bend into a slight curve above or below the equator (instead of following the equator directly) as you pull it, because the shortest distance between two points on a globe is not a straight line.

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 3 points 2 hours ago

of course the shortest distance is a straight line, that's literally the definition of a straight line.