Of course it’s trivial in principle, but one of my notes from 1990 records that I found it surprisingly tricky in practice to calculate how far Perth is from Boston, based on their latitudes and longitudes. In fact I remember working out the formula while on the train crossing the Nullarbor Plain.

It’s not tricky any more. On a whim I just asked my phone, “How far is Perth from Boston?”, and it responded instantly in a friendly man’s voice. “Perth, Australia is about 11,621 miles from Boston, Massachusetts as the crow flies.”

However, it is still only 2017. I followed up with “How far is that in kilometers?” and the friendly man responded, “Sorry, I don’t know where that is”.

[13 January 2017]