Translations:AY Honors/Geocaching - Advanced/Answer Key/6/en
From Pathfinder Wiki
- Degrees
- Most people become familiar with the angular measurement of a degree in a mathematics class when they are introduced to the protractor. The degree used in Geocaching is this very same measurement. Latitude measures the angle made by two lines which both originate at the very center of the Earth. The first line extends from the center of the Earth to the equator, and the second line extends from the center of the Earth to the position being described. Longitude is similar, measuring the angle formed by two lines - one extending from the center of the Earth to the equator directly south of Greenwich, England, and the other extending from the center of the Earth to a position on the equator directly north or south of the measured position.
- Minutes
- A degree is not a very precise measurement of an angle when considering something as large as the planet Earth. If only degrees were used to specify a person's position, we could only get within about 100km
of the person's position. Therefore, a degree is divided into 60 finer measurements called minutes. Minutes in Geocaching has little to do with time. - Seconds
- Even with the finer angular resolution of minutes, we can still only get to within about 1670 meters of a person's position, so the minute is divided into seconds. One second can get us to within about 28 meters of a position, so they are typically specified to a couple of decimal places, as in "25.65 seconds".
