Re:Living outside America
by rdl on Monday July 02, 2012 @01:48AM
(#4187525)
Usually people just use the surface of the earth for this.
The funny thing is calculating it at high resolution would require classified data (the best measures of the exact shape of the earth are classified; they are used in ICBM flight path calculations, and deviation from an oblate spheroid is significant when you want to put something on a tennis court from the other side of the world. The exact distribution of mass (some concentrations of heavier materials) and magnetism (for MAD detection of submarines) are similar.
The funny thing is calculating it at high resolution would require classified data (the best measures of the exact shape of the earth are classified; they are used in ICBM flight path calculations, and deviation from an oblate spheroid is significant when you want to put something on a tennis court from the other side of the world. The exact distribution of mass (some concentrations of heavier materials) and magnetism (for MAD detection of submarines) are similar.