Just read somewhere that the shortest path between two locations is an arc and not a straight line! eli5 how an arc is the shortest path for planes.

Question

Just read somewhere that the shortest path between two locations is an arc and not a straight line! eli5 how an arc is the shortest path for planes.

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Answer 1

Well, technically the shortest distance between two points on a globe is a straight line. But that straight line goes *through the middle of the earth* which is not something planes can do.

So the next best path is to travel along the surface of the sphere, in a straight line. But when you project that sphere (globe) onto a 2D surface, the path looks like it’s curved.