The discussion re how to find the center of an area
reminded me
of the attached article from the Lyons, KS paper
which somebody
sent to me a long time ago. On our midwestern
trip 2 months ago
we visited this location and found a small fenced
area with a metal
fence post in the center. No signs or
markings and no one home
at the nearby farm house.
Using the method of averaging
geocoordinates of the four corners
of Kansas put me about 17 miles west
of the point shown in the
newspaper article.
The northeast corner of KS follows the Missouri
R. and this introduces a significant error
into this method of calculating
the center. It should work very well, as
David points out, for rectangles
like Colorado or Wyoming.
David's method in message 1032 should be much more
accurate but
very tedious to calculate. It seems to
me that sherical geometry must
be involved in order to avoid the problem that
Jesper found in trying to
locate the center of N. America on a flat
map.
Do we have any mathemeticians in the crowd who can
solve this problem?