How Does GNav Basics 3: Great Circles & Rhumb Lines Work?

GNav Basics 3 helps us understand two special kinds of paths on Earth: great circles and rhumb lines, like choosing between a straight line or a winding road when traveling.

Imagine you're taking the shortest path from one side of an orange to the other, that’s what a great circle is. It's like drawing a straight line across the Earth, and it gives you the fastest route between two places. If you were flying from New York to London, a plane might take a great circle path because it goes over the Atlantic in one smooth curve.

Now think of walking around a spiral staircase, that’s like a rhumb line. It's not the fastest way, but it keeps you going in a steady direction, just like how a ship might follow a rhumb line on its journey across the ocean. Even though it curves, it feels easier to follow because you're always heading the same way.

You can think of great circles as the straight roads and rhumb lines as the winding paths, both help us get from one place to another, just in different ways!