Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The history of longitude describes the centuries-long effort by astronomers, cartographers and navigators to discover a means of determining the longitude of any given place on Earth. The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation. In particular, for safe ocean navigation, knowledge of both latitude and longitude ...
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 calculating longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel.
Longitude lines on the globe. The longitude rewards were the system of inducement prizes offered by the British government for a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude at sea. The prizes, established through an Act of Parliament (the Longitude Act) in 1714, were administered by the Board of Longitude .
Geodetic latitude and geocentric latitude have different definitions. Geodetic latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and the surface normal at a point on the ellipsoid, whereas geocentric latitude is defined as the angle between the equatorial plane and a radial line connecting the centre of the ellipsoid to a point on the surface (see figure).
Subsequent Longitude Acts offered different rewards. That of 1767 held out £5,000 for improvements to Tobias Mayer's lunar tables and that of 1774 halved the amount offered for any method or instrument achieving the degrees of precision outlined in the original Act (i.e. £5,000 for a degree, £7,500 for 2 ⁄ 3 of a degree or £10,000 for 1 ⁄ 2 a degree).
A navigation system on an oil tanker. Navigation[ 1] is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. [ 2] The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, [ 3] marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation.
In cartography, a map projection is any of a broad set of transformations employed to represent the curved two-dimensional surface of a globe on a plane. [ 1][ 2][ 3] In a map projection, coordinates, often expressed as latitude and longitude, of locations from the surface of the globe are transformed to coordinates on a plane. [ 4][ 5 ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!