[Edu-sig] Calculating area of a surface plane on a spherical body.

[agauld@crosswinds.net]

On 18 Sep 01, at 10:26, Jonathan Pennington wrote:
> Given > 3 points on a plane, how would one use Python to calculate the
> surface area of that plane. 

My maths are rusty but how can you calculate the surface area 
of a plane? There are no boundaries to a plane the surface is 
always infinite? Or am I missing some vital bit of definition 
somewhere?

> science(geology) and programming. Students will take coordinate data
> (either in lat/lon or UTM format) and enter the data into their
> programs to manipulate it, so the points will probably be in lat/lon
> format.

Now this implies a different kind of plane at work? Something to do 
with geography and therefore bounded?

curious,

Alan G