Question

When flying from Florida (1) to the Philippine Islands (3), why does the shortest route pass through Alaska (2)?

Answer 1

Because of spherical geometry

let me explain

The Philippines are south of Florida - why is flying north to Alaska a short-cut? The answer is that Florida, Alaska, and the Philippines are collinear locations in spherical geometry (they lie on a great circle). Another odd property of spherical geometry is that the sum of the angles of a triangle is always greater then 180°. Small triangles, like those drawn on a football field, have very, very close to 180°. Big triangles, however, (like the triangle with veracities: New York, L.A. and Tampa) have significantly more than 180°.

Spherical geometry is a plane geometry on the surface of a sphere. In a plane geometry, the basic concepts are points and lines. In spherical geometry, points are defined in the usual way, but lines are defined such that the shortest distance between two points lies along them. Therefore, lines in spherical geometry aregreat circles. A great circle is the largest circle that can be drawn on a sphere. The longitude lines and the equator are great circles of the Earth. Latitude lines, except for the equator, are not great circles. Great circles are lines that divide a sphere into two equal hemispheres.

this is the long answer:

Spherical geometry is used by pilots and ship captains as they navigate around the globe. Working in spherical geometry has some non-intuitive results.