On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:39:30 +0200, Terje Mathisen "terje.mathisen at
tmsw.no" wrote:

(It is probably_more_ precise than doing regular trig operations on a
calculator, due to the limited precision on said calculator: With a
height of 6 feet we get about 3.5 miles, right?

The ratio of 1.8 m to 6400 km is about 3.5e6, so the second-order term
requires 13 digits while most calculators are happy to show 8 or 10, right?

The CalculatorThatTakesNoPrisoners [HP48] displays 13 plus the
exponent. I think it calculates to 16 places. I suppose there _are_
many cheapies that are not up to it.

Casady