NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Still on LOPs
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2002 Apr 18, 09:02 +1000
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2002 Apr 18, 09:02 +1000
If we have just one LOP then I can see that the possibility is 50/50 that the real position (RP) lies on either side of it. But I suspect that with a second and third, the probability of the RP lying within the confines of the LOPs increases, not decreases. This is what common sense and long experience tells us and the elliptical plots we've seen seem to bear this out. I suspect that George Huxtable is having a lend of us by trying to show the contrary, a classic case of 'lies, damn lies and statistics', although its all to the good by forcing us to think about the question and justify it by all means possible. By way of example, here's another conundrum. We all know that the world's human population has been increasing over recorded history, and that the rate of increase is also rapidly rising, particularly in the last 150 years. If you wanted to plot this you would have a triangle, the peak at the top would be the small original population, the wide base at the bottom the present population. Now on the same sheet start with any of these individuals at the bottom, and work back: two parents, four grandparents; each generation, about every 25 years, must double the population, so you end up with another triangle of the opposite shape, making a shape like the star of David. Each shape defies the other yet both must be literally true. The solution to that one is that the hordes of people who didn't exist in the mists of time must have been nearly all the same people, its actually a proof of how closely related we all are. I'm not sure what the solution to the fix within or without the LOPs is but it seems to be engaging many of us.