Great Circle

Pronunciation: /greɪt ˈsɜr.kəl/ Explain

Figure 1: Great circle.

A great circle is a circle on the surface of a sphere that divides the sphere into two equal halves.[1] A great circle contains the diameter of the sphere. The great circle has the least curvature of any circle on the sphere. A great circle passing through two points contains the shortest distance between those two points on the surface of a sphere. A circle that is not a great circle is called a small circle.

References

1. McAdams, David E.. All Math Words Dictionary, great circle. 2nd Classroom edition 20150108-4799968. pg 87. Life is a Story Problem LLC. January 8, 2015. Buy the book
2. great circle. merriam-webster.com. Encyclopedia Britannica. Merriam-Webster. Last Accessed 7/11/2018. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/great circle. Buy the book
3. Bartol, William C. The Elements of Solid Geometry. pp 49-50. www.archive.org. Leach, Shewell, & Sandborn. 1893. Last Accessed 7/11/2018. http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924001115546#page/n60/mode/1up/search/bisects. Buy the book
4. Andrew Pressley. Elementary Differential Geometry. corrected edition. pp 174-178,190-195. Springer. September 18, 2002. Last Accessed 7/11/2018. Buy the book

Cite this article as:

McAdams, David E. Great Circle. 12/21/2018. All Math Words Encyclopedia. Life is a Story Problem LLC. http://www.allmathwords.org/en/g/greatcircle.html.

Image Credits

• All images and manipulatives are by David McAdams unless otherwise stated. All images by David McAdams are Copyright © Life is a Story Problem LLC and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Revision History

12/21/2018: Reviewed and corrected IPA pronunication. (McAdams, David E.)
7/10/2018: Removed broken links, updated license, implemented new markup, implemented new Geogebra protocol. (McAdams, David E.)
2/8/2010: Added "References". (McAdams, David E.)
12/17/2008: Initial version. (McAdams, David E.)