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Geodesics On An Ellipsoid
The study of geodesics on an ellipsoid arose in connection with geodesy specifically with the solution of triangulation networks. The figure of the Earth is well approximated by an ''oblate ellipsoid'', a slightly flattened sphere. A ''geodesic'' is the shortest path between two points on a curved surface, analogous to a straight line on a plane surface. The solution of a triangulation network on an ellipsoid is therefore a set of exercises in spheroidal trigonometry . If the Earth is treated as a sphere, the geodesics are great circles (all of which are closed) and the problems reduce to ones in spherical trigonometry. However, showed that the effect of the rotation of the Earth results in its resembling a slightly oblate ellipsoid: in this case, the equator and the meridians are the only simple closed geodesics. Furthermore, the shortest path between two points on the equator does not necessarily run along the equator. Finally, if the ellipsoid is further perturbed to b ...
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Long Geodesic On An Oblate Ellipsoid
Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great time, duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music mensural notation Places Asia * Long District, Laos * Long District, Phrae, Thailand * Longjiang (other) or River Long (lit. "dragon river"), one of several rivers in China * Yangtze River or Changjiang (lit. "Long River"), China Elsewhere * Long, Somme, France * Long, Washington, United States People * Long (surname) * Long (surname 龍) (Chinese surname) Fictional characters * Long (Bloody Roar), Long (''Bloody Roar''), in the video game series Sports * Long, a Fielding (cricket)#Modifiers, fielding term in cricket * Long, in tennis and similar games, beyond the service line during a serve and beyond the baseline during play Other uses * , a U.S. Navy ship name * Long (finance), a position in finance, especially stock marke ...
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Geodesic Problem On An Ellipsoid
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. It is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line". The noun '' geodesic'' and the adjective ''geodetic'' come from '' geodesy'', the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth, though many of the underlying principles can be applied to any ellipsoidal geometry. In the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface. For a spherical Earth, it is a segment of a great circle (see also great-circle distance). The term has since been generalized to more abstract mathematical spaces; for example, in graph theory, one might consider a geodesic between two vertices/nodes of a graph. In a Riemannian manifold or submanifold, geodesics are characterised by the property of having vani ...
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Clairaut's Relation
In classical differential geometry, Clairaut's relation, named after Alexis Claude de Clairaut, is a formula that characterizes the great circle paths on the unit sphere. The formula states that if γ is a parametrization of a great circle then : \rho(\gamma(t)) \sin \psi(\gamma(t)) = \text,\, where ''ρ''(''P'') is the distance from a point ''P'' on the great circle to the ''z''-axis, and ''ψ''(''P'') is the angle between the great circle and the meridian through the point ''P''. The relation remains valid for a geodesic on an arbitrary surface of revolution. A statement of the general version of Clairaut's relation is: Pressley (p. 185) explains this theorem as an expression of conservation of angular momentum about the axis of revolution In geometry, a solid of revolution is a solid figure obtained by rotating a plane figure around some straight line (the '' axis of revolution'') that lies on the same plane. The surface created by this revolution and which ...
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Beltrami Identity
Beltrami may refer to: Places in the United States *Beltrami County, Minnesota *Beltrami, Minnesota *Beltrami, Minneapolis, a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota Other uses *Beltrami (surname) Beltrami is an Italian surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Eugenio Beltrami (1835-1900), Italian mathematician *Giacomo Beltrami (1779-1855), Italian count for whom the Minnesota county is named, and who claimed (inaccurately) to hav ...
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Calculus Of Variations
The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions to the real numbers. Functionals are often expressed as definite integrals involving functions and their derivatives. Functions that maximize or minimize functionals may be found using the Euler–Lagrange equation of the calculus of variations. A simple example of such a problem is to find the curve of shortest length connecting two points. If there are no constraints, the solution is a straight line between the points. However, if the curve is constrained to lie on a surface in space, then the solution is less obvious, and possibly many solutions may exist. Such solutions are known as ''geodesics''. A related problem is posed by Fermat's principle: light follows the path of shortest optical length connecting two points, which depends up ...
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Lagrangian Mechanics
In physics, Lagrangian mechanics is a formulation of classical mechanics founded on the stationary-action principle (also known as the principle of least action). It was introduced by the Italian-French mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange in his 1788 work, '' Mécanique analytique''. Lagrangian mechanics describes a mechanical system as a pair (M,L) consisting of a configuration space M and a smooth function L within that space called a ''Lagrangian''. By convention, L = T - V, where T and V are the kinetic and potential energy of the system, respectively. The stationary action principle requires that the action functional of the system derived from L must remain at a stationary point (a maximum, minimum, or saddle) throughout the time evolution of the system. This constraint allows the calculation of the equations of motion of the system using Lagrange's equations. Introduction Suppose there exists a bead sliding around on a wire, or a swinging simple p ...
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Earth Radius
Earth radius (denoted as ''R''🜨 or R_E) is the distance from the center of Earth to a point on or near its surface. Approximating the figure of Earth by an Earth spheroid, the radius ranges from a maximum of nearly (equatorial radius, denoted ''a'') to a minimum of nearly (polar radius, denoted ''b''). A ''nominal Earth radius'' is sometimes used as a unit of measurement in astronomy and geophysics, which is recommended by the International Astronomical Union to be the equatorial value. A globally-average value is usually considered to be with a 0.3% variability (±10 km) for the following reasons. The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) provides three reference values: the ''mean radius'' (R) of three radii measured at two equator points and a pole; the ''authalic radius'', which is the radius of a sphere with the same surface area (R); and the ''volumetric radius'', which is the radius of a sphere having the same volume as the ellipsoid (R). All three ...
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Eccentricity (mathematics)
In mathematics, the eccentricity of a conic section is a non-negative real number that uniquely characterizes its shape. More formally two conic sections are similar if and only if they have the same eccentricity. One can think of the eccentricity as a measure of how much a conic section deviates from being circular. In particular: * The eccentricity of a circle is zero. * The eccentricity of an ellipse which is not a circle is greater than zero but less than 1. * The eccentricity of a parabola is 1. * The eccentricity of a hyperbola is greater than 1. * The eccentricity of a pair of lines is \infty Definitions Any conic section can be defined as the locus of points whose distances to a point (the focus) and a line (the directrix) are in a constant ratio. That ratio is called the eccentricity, commonly denoted as . The eccentricity can also be defined in terms of the intersection of a plane and a double-napped cone associated with the conic section. If the cone is oriented ...
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Curve
In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line (geometry), line, but that does not have to be Linearity, straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point (geometry), point. This is the definition that appeared more than 2000 years ago in Euclid's Elements, Euclid's ''Elements'': "The [curved] line is […] the first species of quantity, which has only one dimension, namely length, without any width nor depth, and is nothing else than the flow or run of the point which […] will leave from its imaginary moving some vestige in length, exempt of any width." This definition of a curve has been formalized in modern mathematics as: ''A curve is the image (mathematics), image of an interval (mathematics), interval to a topological space by a continuous function''. In some contexts, the function that defines the curve is called a ''parametrization'', and the curve is a parametric curve. In this artic ...
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Great-circle Navigation
Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; from the Greek ''ορθóς'', right angle, and ''δρóμος'', path) is the practice of navigating a vessel (a ship or aircraft) along a great circle. Such routes yield the shortest distance between two points on the globe. Course The great circle path may be found using spherical trigonometry; this is the spherical version of the '' inverse geodetic problem''. If a navigator begins at ''P''1 = (φ1,λ1) and plans to travel the great circle to a point at point ''P''2 = (φ2,λ2) (see Fig. 1, φ is the latitude, positive northward, and λ is the longitude, positive eastward), the initial and final courses α1 and α2 are given by formulas for solving a spherical triangle :\begin \tan\alpha_1&=\frac,\\ \tan\alpha_2&=\frac,\\ \end where λ12 = λ2 − λ1In the article on great-circle distances, the ...
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Solution Of Triangles
Solution of triangles ( la, solutio triangulorum) is the main trigonometric problem of finding the characteristics of a triangle (angles and lengths of sides), when some of these are known. The triangle can be located on a plane or on a sphere. Applications requiring triangle solutions include geodesy, astronomy, construction, and navigation. Solving plane triangles A general form triangle has six main characteristics (see picture): three linear (side lengths ) and three angular (). The classical plane trigonometry problem is to specify three of the six characteristics and determine the other three. A triangle can be uniquely determined in this sense when given any of the following: *Three sides (SSS) *Two sides and the included angle (SAS) *Two sides and an angle not included between them (SSA), if the side length adjacent to the angle is shorter than the other side length. *A side and the two angles adjacent to it (ASA) *A side, the angle opposite to it and an angle adjacent to ...
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