In the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface. For a spherical Earth, it is a segment of a great circle (see also great-circle distance).

Jan 29, 2026 · A geodesic is a locally length-minimizing curve. Equivalently, it is a path that a particle which is not accelerating would follow. In the plane, the geodesics are straight lines. On the sphere, …

Illustrated definition of Geodesic: The shortest line segment between two points on a sphere or other curved surface. A Geodesic Dome is made with...

The meaning of GEODESIC is geodetic. How to use geodesic in a sentence.

A geodesic, the shortest distance between any two points on a sphere, is an arc of the great circle through the two points. The formula for determining a sphere’s surface area is 4π r2; its volume is …

A geodesic is the shortest path between two points on a curved surface, such as a sphere. In the context of spherical geometry, geodesics are represented by great circles, which are the …

Definition: A geodesic in a curved space is a curve that locally minimizes distance. This means: It's the "straightest possible" path: If you were to zoom in on a small segment of the geodesic, it would look …

In Euclidean geometry, a geodesic is simply a straight line between two points on a surface. In non-Euclidean geometry, a geodesic is typically described as a segment of a great circle. In most cases, …

A geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a “straight line” from a plane to a surface, on which it represents in some sense the shortest path between two points.

The geodesic equation may not look particularly appealing, but we’ll get used to it and its properties. It is an equality of vectors, which we can separate into components c(t) = (x(t), y(t)).