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Plane Sailing
Plane sailing (also, colloquially and historically, spelled plain sailing) is an approximate method of navigation over small ranges of latitude and longitude. With the course and distance known, the difference in latitude Δ''φAB'' between ''A'' and ''B'' can be found, as well as the departure, the distance made good east or west. The difference in longitude Δ''λAB'' is unknown and has to be calculated using meridional parts as in Mercator sailing. Both spellings ("plane" and "plain") have been in use for several centuries, Plane sailing is based on the assumption that the meridian through the point of departure, the parallel through the destination, and the course line form a right triangle in a plane, called the "plane sailing triangle". The expressions "plane sailing" (or more commonly "plain sailing") has, by analogy, taken on a more general meaning of any activity that is relatively straightforward. See also *Great-circle navigation *Mercator Sailing * Mid-latitude sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latitude
In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole, with 0° at the Equator. Parallel (latitude), Lines of constant latitude, or ''parallels'', run east-west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude and longitude are used together as a coordinate pair to specify a location on the surface of the Earth. On its own, the term "latitude" normally refers to the ''geodetic latitude'' as defined below. Briefly, the geodetic latitude of a point is the angle formed between the vector perpendicular (or ''Normal (geometry), normal'') to the ellipsoidal surface from the point, and the equatorial plane, plane of the equator. Background Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definitions of latitude and longitude. In the first step the physical surface i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ). Meridians are imaginary semicircular lines running from pole to pole that connect points with the same longitude. The prime meridian defines 0° longitude; by convention the International Reference Meridian for the Earth passes near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, south-east London on the island of Great Britain. Positive longitudes are east of the prime meridian, and negative ones are west. Because of the Earth's rotation, there is a close connection between longitude and time measurement. Scientifically precise local time varies with longitude: a difference of 15° longitude corresponds to a one-hour difference in local time, due to the differing position in relation to the Sun. Comparing local time to an absol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Course (navigation)
In navigation, the course of a watercraft or aircraft is the cardinal direction in which the craft is to be Steering, steered. The course is to be distinguished from the ''Heading (navigation), heading'', which is the direction where the watercraft's Bow (watercraft), bow or the aircraft's Nose cone, nose is pointed. The path that a vessel follows is called a track or, in the case of aircraft, ground track (also known as ''course made good'' or ''course over the ground''). The intended track is a route. Discussion For ships and aircraft, routes are typically Great-circle distance, straight-line segments between Waypoint, waypoints. A navigator determines the ''bearing'' (the compass direction from the craft's current position) of the next waypoint. Because water currents or wind can cause a craft to drift off course, a navigator sets a ''course to steer'' that compensates for drift. The helmsman or pilot points the craft on a ''heading'' that corresponds to the course to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distance
Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects, points, people, or ideas are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). The term is also frequently used metaphorically to mean a measurement of the amount of difference between two similar objects (such as statistical distance between probability distributions or edit distance between string (computer science), strings of text) or a degree of separation (as exemplified by distance (graph theory), distance between people in a social network). Most such notions of distance, both physical and metaphorical, are formalized in mathematics using the notion of a metric space. In the social sciences, distance can refer to a qualitative measurement of separation, such as social distance or psychological distance. Distances in physics and geometry The distance between physical locations can be defined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a Flemish people, Flemish geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on a new Mercator projection, projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts. Mercator was a notable maker of globes and scientific instruments. In addition, he had interests in theology, philosophy, history, mathematics, and geomagnetism. He was also an accomplished engraving, engraver and Calligraphy, calligrapher. Unlike other great scholars of the age, he travelled little and his knowledge of geography came from his library of over a thousand books and maps, from his visitors and from his vast correspondence (in six languages) with other scholars, statesmen, travellers, merchants and seamen. Mercator's early maps were in large formats suitable for w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great-circle Navigation
Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; ) is the practice of navigating a vessel (a ship or aircraft) along a great circle. Such routes yield the shortest distance between two points on the globe. Course The great circle path may be found using spherical trigonometry; this is the spherical version of the ''inverse geodetic problem''. If a navigator begins at ''P''1 = (φ1,λ1) and plans to travel the great circle to a point at point ''P''2 = (φ2,λ2) (see Fig. 1, φ is the latitude, positive northward, and λ is the longitude, positive eastward), the initial and final courses α1 and α2 are given by formulas for solving a spherical triangle :\begin \tan\alpha_1&=\frac,\\ \tan\alpha_2&=\frac,\\ \end where λ12 = λ2 − λ1In the article on great-circle distances, the notation Δλ = λ12 and Δσ&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercator Sailing
__NOTOC__ Mercator (Latin for "merchant") often refers to the Mercator projection, a cartographic projection named after its inventor, Gerardus Mercator. Mercator may refer to: People * Marius Mercator (c. 390–451), a Catholic ecclesiastical writer * Arnold Mercator, a 16th-century cartographer * Gerardus Mercator, a 16th-century cartographer ** Mercator 1569 world map ** Mercator projection * Rumold Mercator, a 16th-century cartographer * Nicholas Mercator, a 17th-century mathematician ** Mercator series, a representation of the natural logarithm Companies and universities * Mercator (retail), a Slovenian supermarket chain * Mercator-S, a retail company in Serbia, part of Agrokor Group * Mercator School of Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany * Mercator Limited, a shipping company in India * Mercator Corporation, a consulting firm and investment bank formed by James Giffen, involved with Kazakhgate Vehicles * ''Mercator'' (ship), a barquentine museum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-latitude Sailing
The middle latitudes, also called the mid-latitudes (sometimes spelled midlatitudes) or moderate latitudes, are spatial regions on either hemisphere of Earth, located between the Tropic of Cancer (latitude ) and the Arctic Circle () in the northern hemisphere and between the Tropic of Capricorn (-) and the Antarctic Circle (-) in the southern hemisphere. They include Earth's subtropical and temperate zones, which lie between the two tropics and the polar circles. Weather fronts and extratropical cyclones are usually found in this area, as well as occasional tropical cyclones or subtropical cyclones, which have traveled from their areas of formation closer to the Equator. The prevailing winds in the middle latitudes are often very strong. These parts of the world also see a wide variety of fast-changing weather as cold air masses from the poles and warm air masses from the tropics constantly push up and down over them against each other, sometimes alternating within hours of eac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Sailing
Parallel may refer to: Mathematics * Parallel (geometry), two lines in the Euclidean plane which never intersect * Parallel (operator), mathematical operation named after the composition of electrical resistance in parallel circuits Science and engineering * Parallel (latitude), an imaginary east–west line circling a globe * Parallel of declination, used in astronomy * Parallel, a geometric term of location meaning "in the same direction" * Parallel electrical circuits Computing * Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel Language * Parallelism (grammar), a balance of two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses * Parallelism (rhetoric) Entertainment * ''Parallel'' (manga) * ''Parallel'' (2018 film), a Canadian science fiction thriller film * ''Parallel'' (2024 film) an American science fiction thriller film * ''Parallel'' (video), a compilation of music videos by R.E.M. * ''Parallel'' (The Black Dog album), 1995 * ''Parallel'' (Fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhumb Line
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant azimuth ( bearing as measured relative to true north). Navigation on a fixed course (i.e., steering the vessel to follow a constant cardinal direction) would result in a rhumb-line track. Introduction The effect of following a rhumb line course on the surface of a globe was first discussed by the Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes in 1537, in his ''Treatise in Defense of the Marine Chart'', with further mathematical development by Thomas Harriot in the 1590s. A rhumb line can be contrasted with a great circle, which is the path of shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere. On a great circle, the bearing to the destination point does not remain constant. If one were to drive a car along a great circle one would hold the steering wheel fixed, but to follow a rhumb line one would have to turn the wheel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
