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Old 11th July 2004 | 20:27
  #42 (permalink)  
homeguard
 
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 636
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From: notts
Nav & the wheel

Like the wheel Navigation dosn't require re-inventing!

Nav didn't start 90 years ago but many thousands of years before.

The Ancient Babylonians (the Marsh people of Iraq) first devised the 1:60 rule, the Radian. Polynesian sailers have used the principle of maintaining a track right angles to the rings eminating from a central point (i.e. land mass) for thousands of years and then homed using the same.

In teaching the 'whizz wheel' an oportunity also arises to teach; an understanding of the relationship of distance (angular change) and time (motion). i.e. why it is that you can divide and multiply together what would otherwise appear to be different things.
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