NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The flat earth notion
From: Jim Thompson
Date: 2003 Nov 5, 07:04 -0400
From: Jim Thompson
Date: 2003 Nov 5, 07:04 -0400
If I had arrived at the North Pole, would I not simply be starting out on a loxodrome heading south, on a bearing 180 degrees greater than the one I had arrived on at the North Pole, eventually to arrive at the South Pole? http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~fjones/loxo.html. I visualized myself travelling on a ship through the North Pole on a constant bearing. Not vanishing into the ether in my mind, I then I drew the situation on a sketch map with the North Pole at the center, and the lines of longitude radiating out from the Pole. I drew my heading as a straight line entering the Pole at 045 degrees. According to the diagram, it appears that I would leave the Pole on a heading of 225 degrees. Jim Thompson jim2@jimthompson.net www.jimthompson.net Outgoing mail scanned by Norton Antivirus ----------------------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: Navigation Mailing List > [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Herbert Prinz > Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 5:25 AM > To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM > Subject: Re: The flat earth notion > > On a spheroidal earth, if you proceed on a rhumb line with > constant speed, you > will arrive at a pole after a finite time. You won't be able to > stop your vessel > at this very moment, because of your inertia . This raises the puzzling > question: Where will you be a second after you will have passed > through the > pole? Neither Dutton nor Bowditch has the answer.
