I normally don't like threads that just link to a video and offer nothing concrete, but this one popped up in another thread, linked to by Woody ( thanks Woody )
And is worthy of it's own thread and separate discussion, he raises some interesting points.
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Hi Ray,
I watched you video and it was interesting. I know very little about surveying, probably just enough to get me in trouble for bring up this issue or my thoughts on the subject. I know enough that they do use triangulation to measure areas that they can't get to easily by measuring clearing they can get to easily. That is the way they surveyed my property one time. They didn't want to go in the woods, so they used a clear field to measure and then they could find the length through the woods.
At around 17 or 18 minutes the video guy brought up plane triangles and that there angles add up to 180
O and he brought up spherical excess where the angles add up to be >180
O and this was because the Earth was round. I seen where this has been brought up before on this forum. I can understand this on a curved surface.
Then he doesn't mention this anymore. All he talks about then on is plane triangles to measure the Earth. He shows maps where they use plane triangles to measure the land and tall structures. To me, it wouldn't make sense to measure the earth using plane triangles if the Earth is round because none of the triangles would add up to 180
Oand all the measurements would be off by a certain amount. It looks to me we should be using the other triangle, the one that it's angles are greater than 180
O and by how much greater would they be? How would you find that out? It may be okay to use plane triangles to survey your property, but to survey a country, it looks the wrong method to me.
This is just me thinking again, I know in my bones you are going to steer straight again.