Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The compass was invented in China during the Han dynasty between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD where it was called the "south-governor" (sīnán司南) or "South Pointing Fish" (指南魚). [ 3 ] The magnetic compass was not, at first, used for navigation, but for geomancy and fortune-telling by the Chinese.
Among the Four Great Inventions, the magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han dynasty (since c. 206 BC), [1] [2] and later adopted for navigation by the Song dynasty Chinese during the 11th century. [3] [4] [5] The first usage of a compass recorded in Western Europe and the Islamic world ...
Map of the world produced in 1689 by Gerard van Schagen. The history of navigation, or the history of seafaring, is the art of directing vessels upon the open sea through the establishment of its position and course by means of traditional practice, geometry, astronomy, or special instruments.
Horology & carpentry. John Harrison (3 April [O.S. 24 March] 1693 – 24 March 1776) was an English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of how to calculate longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long ...
Cutaway of an Anschütz gyrocompass. A gyrocompass repeater. A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. A gyrocompass makes use of one of the seven fundamental ways ...
In the middle of the XVth century historian Flavio Biondo wrote that compass had been invented in Amalfi. Then in 1511 Giambatista Pio wrote: "In Amalfi, Campania, the use of the magnet was invented, according to Flavio". But later due to a misplaced comma this was narrated as "the use of the magnet was invented by Flavio, it is said" [4]
Signature. Gerardus Mercator (/ dʒɪˈrɑːrdəs mɜːrˈkeɪtər /; [a][b][c] 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) [d] was a geographer, cosmographer and cartographer from the Habsburg Netherlands. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as ...
The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, south, east, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, S, E, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at 90 degree intervals in the clockwise direction. The ordinal directions (also called the intercardinal ...