Gene:

Thanks. And for those who wish to enter the coordinates of two points and
have the distance returned (my original request), this is a Web site that
does the caluculation for you:

http://www.indo.com/distance/

Dave P.


"Gene Fuller" wrote in message
news
Dave Pitzer wrote:
I'm looking for a way to enter two pairs of geographic coordinates
(point X
and point Y) and have the over-ground distance between them returned.

Any help?

Dave P

The standard formula for the great circle distance is:

d=arccos[sin(lat1)*sin(lat2)+cos(lat1)*cos(lat2)*cos(long1-long2)]

There is no magic here; this is simply spherical geometry and
trigonometry at work.

Of course if you don't care about the great circle distance, the answer
can be anything you wish.

73,
Gene
W4SZ