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George Huxtable wrote:

>If the name Willebrord Snellius has a familiar ring, that's because it's the
>Latinised version of the name of the discoverer of "Snell's Law", governing
>the refraction of light across a boundary between two media.
>
>The construction that Todd refers to was being taught as a standard method
>in evening-classes in coastal navigation in the UK, all of 50 years ago,
>though never attributed to Snell.
>

It's a classical surveying technique, in German called
"rueckwaerts-einschneiden". The English  name is  "recession for two
points" (I wish you good luck googling this phrase - particularly in
times like our's.)  Apparently Snellius was the first to treat the
problem, but it's often known under the names of other mathematicians
(e.g. Pothenot, Hansen) who found their own solutions.

As regards the claim on the earlier mentioned website that Snellius
invented the loxodrome: He only coined the name. The concept was
introduced by Nunez.

Herbert Prinz



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