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Alex,

Picking fights with everyone on the list will get you into trouble.
Picking fights while changing the ground that you seek to defend will
bring that trouble swiftly.

In your latest, you wrote:

> No. I claim (based on what I know)
> that there was NO way to determine
> longitude,
> with ANY precision,
> Even with 180d precision (that is to determine, in which hemisphere
> you are) unless you use "Western methods", pioneered by
> Alexandria Greeks in III cent BC based on the Moon.

Which is obviously true (given the unstated focus on celestial methods).
  However, in the message to which I responded, you had written:

>> An almanac just happens to be one of _our_ ways of
>> passing on this sort of information.
>
>
> I disagree with "just one":-)
> Based on what I know, it is also a "better", "superior"
> way in comparison with what other cultures invented.
> In the sense that it gives better precision.
> Of course one can argue that other cultures did not need
> better precision for their needs, with this I don't argue.
> (Correct me if I am wrong here).

If you seek to promote Western navigational methods as being "better" or
specifically as giving "better precision", we can debate that point.
(Though the "better precision" seems beyond doubt.) But it is not
constructive to respond to that debate by trying to change the subject
to the inability of other approaches to estimate longitude from
celestial observations, even at low precision.


Trevor Kenchington


--
Trevor J. Kenchington PhD                         Gadus@iStar.ca
Gadus Associates,                                 Office(902) 889-9250
R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour,                     Fax   (902) 889-9251
Nova Scotia  B0J 2L0, CANADA                      Home  (902) 889-3555

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