Editing Geodesic (section)

===Examples===
[[File:Transpolar geodesic on a triaxial ellipsoid case A.svg|thumb|
A [[geodesics on a triaxial ellipsoid|geodesic on a triaxial ellipsoid]].]]
[[File:Insect on a torus tracing out a non-trivial geodesic.gif|thumb|right|If an insect is placed on a surface and continually walks "forward", by definition it will trace out a geodesic.]]
The most familiar examples are the straight lines in [[Euclidean geometry]]. On a  [[sphere]], the images of geodesics are the  [[great circle]]s. The shortest path from point ''A'' to point ''B'' on a sphere is given by the shorter [[arc (geometry)|arc]] of the great circle passing through ''A'' and ''B''. If ''A'' and ''B'' are [[antipodal point]]s, then there are ''infinitely many'' shortest paths between them.  [[Geodesics on an ellipsoid]] behave in a more complicated way than on a sphere; in particular, they are not closed in general (see figure).