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George's proposal would weight the members by the sine of their angular 
distance from the eventually determined center. I am sure
it could be computed, although possibly iteratively.But it is not obvious to 
me that this would produce shorter travel distances.

A computer could do great-circle distances from everyone to an asssumed point, 
and then iterated to minimize some function of the
distances. One could start with the point arrived at by averaging.

But then, you might want to add cities large enough to have a choice of good restaurants to the mix?

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001 23:14:57 +0100, George Huxtable wrote:

>
>Now glue on to its surface a set of identical coins or weights, one for
>each member, in the spot where they live, and chuck it into the pool again.
>Now, the lowest point of this globe represents in some way a centre of
>concentration of the members.
>
>It should be possible to devise a computer analogy to avoid having to do
>the physical experiment. Would it produce the same answer as Dan Allen's
>method? I wonder...
>


Rodney Myrvaagnes                   J36 Gjo/a
Contributing Editor           Electronic Products
Curmudgeonhood achieved June 30

   

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