How does latitude and longitude apply to mathematics?

Answer 1

Once upon a time, before GPS, sailors spent hours with mathematical tables to work out their position (latitude & longitude) from the angle of the sun or stars above the horizon. If they got it wrong, they might get lost and run out of food, or hit a rock in fog and sink.

If the Earth is approximated as a sphere (it's actually a bit flat on top), latitude and longitude

can be calculated using spherical geometry. In practice, sailors used tables of precalculated

functions, e.g. haversines, and worksheets which reduce the problem to following rules

and doing a lot of arithmetic.