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Sailors have been navigating the seas for thousands of years, and navigational technology has progressed exponentially during that time. This concise yet comprehensive volume begins with the impressive developments in navigation made by early navigators and follows the art and science of navigation through the ages to their culmination in the huge advances made by our contemporaries. With a focus on the navigational tools invented by each age and civilization, Launer traces the evolution of humankind¿s navigational skills from the Kamal of the Arabs and the Lead-line first used by the Romans to the radio and satellite communication devices available to modern sailors. He pays homage to the Polynesians who, in the absence of a written language were able to pass down their navigational skills through generations, and to the adventurous Vikings, who managed to find their way from Scandinavia to England, Iceland, Greenland and beyond; but he also covers the practical applications of the complex technologies found on most boats today, such as GPS. Generous illustrations help readers envision the tools in use. Navigation Through the Ages will appeal to sailors and lay readers alike¿anyone with an interest in the history of science and the exploration of our world.
Many books on celestial navigation take shortcuts in explaining concepts; incorrect diagrams and discussion are often used for the sake of moving the student along quickly. This book tells the true story-and the whole story. It conveys celestial navigation concepts clearly and in the shortest possible time.It's tailored for navigation in the GPS age-a time of computers, calculators, and web resources. Although it covers all of the traditional methods of 'working a sight, ' the primary thrust is using the (under $10) scientific calculator. By using equations that you key into your calculator, this book guides you toward a better understanding of the concepts of celestial navigation.You will learn novel ways to plot lines of position, ways to check your sextant accurately by star sights, and how to tell what time it is from a moon sight. The many appendices are a treasure of references and explanations of abstract ideas. Celestial Navigation is a crucial skill for the offshore navigator to know, this book provides the shortest path to that knowledge.
If you want to know where you are, you need a good clock. The surprising connection between time and placeais explored inaTime and Navigation- The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, the companion book to the National Air and Space Museum exhibition of the same name. Today we use smartphones and GPS, but navigating has not always been so easy. The oldest "clock" is Earth itself, and the oldest means of keeping time came from observing changes in the sky. Early mariners like the Vikings accomplished amazing feats of navigation without using clocks at all. Pioneering seafarers in the Age of Exploration used dead reckoning and celestial navigation; later innovations such as sextants and marine chronometers honed these techniques by measuring latitude and longitude. When explorers turned their sights to the skies, they built on what had been learned at sea. For example, Charles Lindbergh used a bubble sextant on his record-breaking flights. World War II led to the development of new flight technologies, notably radio navigation, since celestial navigation was not suited for all-weather military operations. These forms of navigation were extended and enhanced when explorers began guiding spacecraft into space and across the solar system. Astronauts combined celestial navigation technology with radio transmissions. The development of the atomic clock revolutionized space flight because it could measure billionths of a second, thereby allowing mission teams to navigate more accurately. Scientists and engineers applied these technologies to navigation on earth to develop space-based time and navigation services such as GPS that is used every day by people from all walks of life. While the history of navigation is one of constant change and innovation, it is also one of remarkable continuity. Time and Navigation tells the story of navigation to help us understand where we have been and how we got there so that we can understand where we are going.
A large format, meticulously researched, lavishly illustrated and fully international history of mankind's seaborne voyages from the Phoenicians and Chinese to modern navies and round-the-world sailing yachts. Royal prestige, intellectual curiosity, commerce and territorial expansion all propelled mankind to make perilous voyages across unpredictable oceans to find out what lay beyond the horizon, and the art of navigation allowed them to do so. From initial conjecture and philosophical reason, man ventured forth to glean first-hand information of the seas by exploration and scientific investigation. The author pieces together the advances in astronomy, navigation, shipbuilding and surveying through the ages to tell the fascinating and absorbing history of navigation and exploration in an elegant volume that is beautifully illustrated with manuscripts and rutters, portolans and sea charts, ship's instruments and artefacts. The meticulous research, based on original sources, has brought to light a lot of new information, which in some cases contradicts popular held beliefs. The book opens with the basic questions and challenges of navigation. Part 2 unravels the development of science and seafaring from the ancient times to the Mediterranean era. This created a basis for longer sailings, which are at the heart of Part 3 and in Part 4 the book ends with the advanced technology that made it possible to determine a ship's exact position at sea.
A FASCINATING INVESTIGATION OF HOW WE NAVIGATE THE PHYSICAL WORLD, INNER NAVIGATION IS A LIVELY, ENGAGING ACCOUNT OF SUBCONSCIOUS MAPMAKING. Why are we so often disoriented when we come up from the subway? Do we really walk in circles when we lose our bearings in the wilderness? How -- and why -- do we get lost at all? In this surprising, stimulating book, Erik Jonsson, a Swedish-born engineer who has spent a lifetime exploring navigation over every terrain, from the crowded cities of Europe to the emptiness of the desert, gives readers extraordinary new insights into the human way-finding system. Written for the nonscientist, Inner Navigation explains the astonishing array of physical and psychological cues the brain uses to situate us in space and build its "cognitive maps" -- the subconscious maps it employs to organize landmarks. Humans, Jonsson explains, also possess an intuitive direction frame -- an internal compass -- that keeps these maps oriented (when it functions properly) and a dead-reckoning system that constantly updates our location on the map as we move through the world. Even the most cynical city-dweller will be amazed to learn how much of this innate sense we use every day as we travel across town or around the world. Both a scientific and a human story, Inner Navigation contains a rich assortment of real-life insights and examples of the navigational challenges we all face, no matter where or how we live. It's a book that is as provocative to ponder as it is delightful to lose yourself in. Don't worry: Erik Jonsson will help you find your bearings.
The story of the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS-and the consequent decline of privacy What does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our technologically aided era of navigational omniscience-or how we came to know exactly where we are at all times. In a sweeping history of the development of location technology in the past century, Bray shows how radio signals created to carry telegraph messages were transformed into invisible beacons to guide ships and how a set of rapidly-spinning wheels steered submarines beneath the polar ice cap. But while most of these technologies were developed for and by the military, they are now ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Our phones are now smart enough to pinpoint our presence to within a few feet-and nosy enough to share that information with governments and corporations. Filled with tales of scientists and astronauts, inventors and entrepreneurs, You Are Here tells the story of how humankind ingeniously solved one of its oldest and toughest problems-only to herald a new era in which it's impossible to hide.
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.