NavList:

   

Reply

There's a very rare book in the collection of Mystic Seaport:
"Longitude by lunar distances" by Henry Wilberforce Clarke published
in 1885. It's the sort of book that might make you think that only a
genius could ever figure out lunar distances. Of course, this is long
after lunars had fallen out of use at sea, but some explorers on land
still favored lunars and some enjoyed them as mathematical puzzles. H.
Wilberforce Clarke was definitely in this latter category. He was a
British colonial scholar also famous for his Persian translation work.
There's a brief article about him on Wikipedia.

Wilberforce Clarke's "Longitude by Lunar Distances" consists of
chapter after chapter of minutely detailed calculations with angles
worked out to a fraction of a second of arc, far beyond any practical
necessity. I read through this book once in Mystic and thought, 'this
is the sort of handbook that would have convinced almost anyone that
lunar distances were far beyond normal mathematical skills.' I sure
hope no one actually tried to use it as a practical aid!  But it's
still good history and there are a few choice quotes in the
introductory chapter (for example a recommendation against "star-
gazing" before shooting lunars), and there's good news: google has
digitized it. Just so we're clear, this book makes lunar distances
look more difficult than any other book I have ever seen. This was not
reality. I see it as the outcome of one man's obsession. Can you
resist following him?? ;-)

>From the advanced search page on google books, it's easy enough to
find this book so I won't include a link here.

-FER


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

   

Reply