Importance of longitude and latitude of the Earth?

Answer 1

The earth doesn't have latitude and longitude, but every point on it does.

If you are marooned and need to call for help and need to tell others where you are,

or if you need to direct yourself or others to a specific point on the earth, or if you left

off drilling an oil well in the middle and want to go back to the same place and resume,

or if you're an airline pilot on a 5,000-mile flight and would really like to wind up close

to the right place before your fuel runs out, or if you buy a field and want to put a paper

in the county land office that describes exactly where your ownership covers, or are out

sailing in the middle of the ocean and the thrill has worn off and you just want to take the

shortest fastest most direct route back to your home on Cape Cod and you need to know

what direction to point the boat, or any other situation where you want a method of

precisely describing the location of points on the earth and accurately calculating the

directions from one of them to another, you'll use the longitude and latitude of each

point.

A set of coordinates consists entirely of numbers, which mean exactly the same thing to

everyone who sees them and can't be misunderstood or misinterpreted. It can be spoken

in 20 seconds or written on 1/2 line, and it can describe a location anywhere on earth that's

unique from all others to within a small fraction of an inch.