Elliptic geometry geometry is that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is greater than 180 degrees. In the spherical model, for example, a triangle can be constructed with vertices at the locations where the three positive Cartesian coordinate axes intersect the sphere, and all three of its internal angles are 90 degrees, summing to 270 degrees. For sufficiently small triangles, the excess over 180 degrees can be made arbitrarily small. The Pythagorean theorem fails in elliptic geometry. In the 90°–90°–90° triangle described above, all three sides have the same length, and consequently do not satisfy formula_1. The Pythagorean result
Skinny triangle the stations could be on opposite sides of the Earth. However, this distance is still short compared to the distance to the object being measured (the height of the triangle) and the skinny triangle solution can be applied and still achieve great accuracy. The alternative method of measuring the base angles is theoretically possible but not so accurate. The base angles are very nearly right angles and would need to be measured with much greater precision than the parallax angle in order to get the same accuracy. The same method of measuring parallax angles and applying the skinny triangle can