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

submitted 21 hours ago by manicdave@feddit.uk to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

51 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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[–] theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 12 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Airplanes. Like I get that we can make them stay up, but we can steer them?? Across entire continents and oceans? What the entire fuck

[–] INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone 7 points 16 hours ago

They are made of steel, lmao... how silly do they think we are.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 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.

[–] pebbles@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Has anyone ever sent you nudes cause of your name?

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The point is that you can’t follow a straight line on a globe, because that’s longer than taking a slight curve. If you take a straight line, you follow the entire circumference of the earth, but following a curved path allows you to avoid some of the width. Basically, the circumference means a straight line is more curved than a curved path.

[–] asret@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

Isn't it still a straight line from the perspective of someone travelling it? It just appears curved because you're looking at it from outside the curved surface.