great circle

Noun

Meaning

a circular line on the surface of a sphere formed by intersecting it with a plane passing through the center

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Examples

The Nautilus was piercing the water with its sharp spur, after having accomplished nearly ten thousand leagues in three months and a half, a distance greater than the great circle of the earth. Where were we going now, and what was reserved for the future? Jules Verne

Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses. Albert Pike

Let architects sing of aesthetics that bring Rich clients in hordes to their knees; Just give me a home, in a great circle dome Where stresses and strains are at ease. Buckminster Fuller

In Indian astronomy, the prime meridian is the great circle of the Earth passing through the north and south poles, Ujjayinī and Laṅkā, where Laṅkā was assumed to be on the Earth's equator. Aryabhata

The organization of his ideas was all wrong; I was drawn to the memory of myself -- a mere stripling of a girl -- the day I learned that the shortest distance between any two points was a great circle. Grace Paley

Proposition 4. The circle which divides the dark and the bright portions in the moon is not perceptibly different from a great circle in the moon. Aristarchus of Samos

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