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Explanation:
The notation means "47 degrees, 4 minutes". The "minutes" isn't referring to a time value, but instead they are arc minutes. If we divide one degree into 60 equal pieces, then we form 60 arc minute slices. So in a sense, we are using a round analogue clock to help connect the two ideas.
We can convert to purely degrees through using this formula here
So,
and similarly,
Now subtract the two results we got
47.06667-22.76667 = 24.3
The angular distance between the two cities is 24.3 degrees. By "angular distance" I basically mean how far you need to rotate your viewing angle when looking from city A to city B. Imagine that you're able to be situated at the center of the earth.
The circumference of the earth is
C = 2*pi*r
C = 2*pi*3960
C = 24,881.4138164311
which is approximate and the units are in miles. We multiply by the fraction 24.3/360 to find the arc distance along the curve that corresponds to the angle 24.3 degrees. This is because we don't want the whole circumference, but just a small fraction of it.
So (24.3/360)*24,881.4138164311 = 1,679.4954326091
This rounds to 1679
The distance between the two cities is about 1679 miles.