Download or read book How to Use Plastic Sextants with Applications to Metal Sextants and a Review of Sextant Piloting written by David Burch and published by . This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sextants are used to measure angular heights of celestial bodies above the horizon to find the latitude and longitude of the observer. They can also be used on land with artificial horizons. Sextants can also be used to find the correct Universal Time by measuring the angular distance between the moon and another body along its path across the zodiac. In coastal waters or on land, sextants can be used for very accurate piloting by measuring the horizontal angles between charted landmarks. The vertical angle of a peak above its baseline determines the distance to it, which, combined with a compass bearing, yields a position fix from just one landmark. The angular dip of an object (island or vessel) below the visible horizon can also be used to determine the distance to it. This booklet explains how to get the best results from plastic sextants, and presents numerical comparisons with similar data from metal sextants. Sextant piloting techniques are also reviewed as they are an ideal use of a plastic sextant.
Download or read book The Barometer Handbook written by David Burch and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern look at barometers and applications of barometric pressure.
Download or read book Cognition in the Wild written by Edwin Hutchins and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-08-26 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book
Download or read book Emergency Navigation written by David F. Burch and published by International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press. This book was released on 1989-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Emergency Navigation is far more generally applicable than the title indicates. It is, first and foremost, a detailed account of how to find your position anywhere in the world's oceans after your electronics fail and you lose your sextant, watch, and almanac, but that's really only the beginning. The book is chock-full of good sound navigational techniques and principles that will serve you well regardless of where and under what conditions you are sailing. Hopefully you will never be confronted by the need for emergency navigation, but even the most pleasurable sailing afternoon can be enlivened by a knowledge of the skills and methods taught in this book. Each chapter presumes a fundamental understanding of navigational principles, then deepens and expands that understanding to embrace little-known techniques and makeshfit instruments. Beginning with the assumption that preparing for a navigational emergency is good seamanship, Burch presents detailed discussions on finding time and place at sea; determining direction; steering by wind and swells; steering by the stars; steering by the sun; and steering by other objects in the sky. You will also find chapters on steering under conditions of reduced visibility; piloting in currents; dead reckoning; latitude and longitude; and no-instrument coastal piloting. A final summary tells you what to do in any situation with what you have available at the time. David Burch writes lucidly, and the text is well supported by 127 detailed illustrations. This book offers excellent insights into sound seamanship that will serve you well in all your sailing activities. "A standout in the otherwise faceless navigation texts that passthrough our offices. Anyone venturing offshore should read this book thoroughly."--"Yachting Magazine "Opens the way to pleasurable understanding in a definitive work of instant appeal to seamen of all levels of experience. Full insights into nautical astronomy rarely seen in standard works. . . . Full of sound seamanship for coastal and open water mariners alike."--"The Navigation Foundation "Gives one a deeper understanding of the basic principles of navigation . . . a great store of knowledge which may serve you well in an emergency but will also give much pleasure off watch whilst improving your seamanship in the process."--"British Cruising Association Bulletin "Thorough and authoritative. . . . chapters on steering by the stars, sun, and moon stir the imagination and make one want to be a thousand miles from land . . . Gives us a better understanding of the signposts above the horizon than we might gain from a lifetime of random gazing."--"Sea Kayaker Magazine "Far more than an essay on the principles and practice of emergency navigation, it is a particularly well-written account of the principles of navigation in general and as such cannot fail to bring fresh insights to all of us. Every section and paragraph is permeated with sound practical seamanship . . . Apart from its other virtues, this alone makes it worthwhile."--from the foreword by David Lewis (author of "We, the Navigators and "Ice Bird) "Clearly written in a readable fashion . . . the work is so well thought out and covers so many possibilities that both a beginner and the most experienced navigator will find something of value in its pages. Worth every penny of its cost."--"The Burgee Magazine
Download or read book Celestial Navigation by H O 249 written by John E. Milligan and published by Cornell Maritime Press/Tidewater Publishers. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Any kind of boating can be fun," the author points out, "racing around the marks, or coastwise cruising where there is almost always at hand visual reference ashore from which bearings can be taken for locating one's position and thus finding one's way home. Severing these ties with land, however, offers a new kind of fun, a new kind of freedom, a freedom from dependence on land." Here is a basic beginner's book, introducing the amateur to the tools, the vocabulary, and the techniques of celestial navigation. Among the recommended tools are the H. O. 249 tables, the most widely used among amateur navigators at sea because of their simplicity. The ability to determine one's position at sea both liberates the sailor from the land and enables him to find his way to his destination. If you can read, add and subtract, understand angles, and use a protractor, you can learn to navigate in your armchair or at sea from Celestial Navigation by H. O. 249.
Download or read book The Nautical Sextant written by W. J. Morris and published by . This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nautical Sextant reveals in pictures, prose, and perspective the experience and knowledge gained by the author from years of acquiring, studying, and restoring sextants from earlier times and from around the world. This fascinating book owes much of its attraction to the expert description and photos of the mechanics of the sextants and their subassemblies. It is also the story of how different manufacturers, in different times and places, solved the same mechanical problems in different ways in order to perfect one of the most accurate mechanical devices ever produced by man. All of this is complemented by an historical overview to the current day, an overview which has never been published until now. The Nautical Sextant will be of particular value not only to navigators, but also to restorers, collectors, students of technology, curators, and sextant dealers. With its bibliography and extensive use of footnotes, this book will certainly become a classic in its field.
Download or read book Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation written by David Burch and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lost Enlightenment written by S. Frederick Starr and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.
Download or read book The Anatomy of the Gyroscope written by Frank W. Cousins and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Above the Pacific written by William Joseph Horvat and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Far Travelers written by Oran W. Nicks and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Setting Course written by Sharon Anne Babaian and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[A historical study that] breaks down the history of marine navigation in Canada into three broad categories of technology: shipboard navigation, charting, and shore-based navigational aids"--Page v.
Download or read book Celestial Navigation written by David Burch and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-04 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has been used for 30 years, updated periodically as needed. More than 20,000 students have successfully learned ocean navigation from these materials and gone on to cross oceans or circumnavigate the globe. This book covers how to find position at sea from timed sextant sights of the sun, moon, stars, and planets plus other routine and special procedures of safe, efficient offshore navigation. No previous navigation experience is required. The only math involved is arithmetic (adding and subtracting angles and times). This is a practical, how-to-do-it book, which also includes clear explanations of how it works and how to do it well. Plus this book includes other crucial factors of ocean navigation besides just finding out where you are from the stars, such as logbook procedures, dead reckoning, error analysis, route planning, and more. At the end of this book, you will be ready for ocean navigation. The book includes: text, practice problems, tables selections, detailed glossary, and full solutions. Printable work forms, plotting sheets, and other resources are available at no charge from www.starpath.com/celnavbook. Preface to the Second Edition: We are pleased to say that after ten more years of using this text we do not find reason to change the basic approach and methods of the teaching. We still use most of the same examples, which are now quite old, but that is the beauty of celestial navigation. It has not changed, so we do not benefit in any way from making all new examples, which would bring with them more chance of error in a book of many numbers. We have, however, notably improved and expanded the book. Each section has been updated and reformatted for a clearer presentation, often in response to student questions over the years. New graphics have been added and older ones all updated. There is much new content in the text, especially in the In-Depth chapter, including more detailed discussion of the sailings and more background on the principles. New sections were added on general ocean navigation and optimizing the fixes. We have also updated the electronic navigation section, as most ocean navigators will also be using other tools besides celestial.
Download or read book Mobile Mapping written by Clancy Wilmott and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues for a theory of mobile mapping, a situated and spatial approach towards researching how everyday digital mobile media practices are bound up in global systems of knowledge and power. Drawing from literature in media studies and geography -- and the work of Michel Foucault and Doreen Massey -- it examines how geographical and historical material, social, and cultural conditions are embedded in the way in which contemporary (digital) cartographies are read, deployed, and engaged. This is explored through seventeen walking interviews in Hong Kong and Sydney, as potent discourses like cartographic reason continue to transform and weave through the world in ways that haunt mobile mapping and bring old conflicts into new media. In doing so, Mobile Mapping offers an interdisciplinary rethinking about how multiple translations of spatial knowledges between rational digital epistemologies and tacit ways of understanding space and experience might be conceptualized and researched.
Download or read book American Practical Navigator written by Nathaniel Bowditch and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 798 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Critical Path written by R. Buckminster Fuller and published by Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller. This book was released on 1982-02-15 with total page 892 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The masterwork of a brilliant career, and an important document of the crisis now facing mankind. Today we find ourselves in the midst of the greatest crisis in the history of the human race. Technology has placed in our hands almost unlimited power at the very moment when we have run up against the limits of our resources aboard Spaceship Earth, as the crises of the late twentieth century—political, economic, environmental, and ethical—determine whether or not humanity survives. In this masterful summing up of an entire lifetime’s thought and concern, R. Buckminster Fuller addresses these crucial issues in his most significant, accessible, and urgent work. Critical Path traces the origins and evolution of humanity’s social, political, and economic systems from the obscure mists of prehistory, through the development of the great political empires, to the vast international corporate and political systems that control our destiny today to show how we got to our present situation and what options are available to man. With his customary brilliance, extraordinary energy, and unlimited devotion, Bucky Fuller shows how mankind can survive, and how each individual can respond to the unprecedented threat we face today. The crowning achievement of an extraordinary career, Critical Path offers the reader the excitement of understanding the essential dilemmas of our time and how responsible citizens can rise to meet this ultimate challenge to our future.
Download or read book Something New Under the Sun written by Helen Gavaghan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this, the first history of artificial satellites and their uses, Helen Gavaghan shows how the idea of putting an object in orbit around the earth changed from science fiction to indispensable technology in the twinkling of an eye. Focusing on three major areas of development - navigational satellites, communications, and weather observation and forecasting - Gavaghan tells the remarkable inside story of how obscure men and women, often laboring under strict secrecy, made satellite technology possible. "...a gripping read." -NEW SCIENTIST
