Question

Assume the world is a perfect sphere with radius 3959 miles or 20,903,520 feet. Find the distance, in feet, between my office (gps coordinates 37.7411 N 79.3512 W) and the classroom (gps coordinates 37.7403 N 79.3501 W). Now find the gps coordinates of a home you have lived in outside of Buena Vista. What is the distance, in miles, between your other home and the classroom?

find distance of two points on the earth

Answer 1

The distance between two points on a sphere is given by Haversine formula, given by -

$d = 2r sin^{-1}\bigg(\sqrt{sin^2\Big(\frac{\Phi_2-\Phi_1}{2}\Big)+cos(\Phi_1)cos(\Phi_2)sin^2\Big(\frac{\lambda_2-\lambda_1}{2}\Big)}\ \bigg)$

here, $\phi_1, \phi_2$ is the latitude of the two points and $\lambda_1, \lambda_2$ is the longitude of the two points

For the given problem the distance is calculated - 40.5354 feet