The Science of Navigation: From Dead Reckoning to GPS

384 Pages·2012·6.14 MB·English

by  Mark Denny

The Science of Navigation
The Science
of Navigation
FROM DEAD RECKONING TO GPS
Mark Denny
© 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2012
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Denny, Mark, 1953– The
science of navigation : from dead reckoning to GPS / Mark Denny.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-42140511-7 (hdbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0512-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0560-5 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0511-3 (hdbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0512-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0560-1 (electronic)
1. Navigation—History. 2. Maps. 3. Cartography. 4. Geodesy. I. Title.
VK559.D44 2012
623.8909—dc23
2011037777
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book
materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent
post-consumer waste, whenever possible.
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION Point of Departure
First Quadrant: Geodesy
CHAPTER ONE Earth and Its Orbit
CHAPTER TWO Shaping the Earth
Second Quadrant: Cartography
CHAPTER THREE Surveying
CHAPTER FOUR Mapmaking
Third Quadrant: Early Exploration and Navigation
CHAPTER FIVE Early Explorers, Basic Tools
CHAPTER SIX Europe Discovers the World
Fourth Quadrant: Navigation in Modern Times
CHAPTER SEVEN The Age of Sail and Steam
CHAPTER EIGHT The Electronic Age
CONCLUSION Nature’s Navigators
Technical Appendix
Annotated Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Steve, of Coastal Instrument and Supply, for permission to reproduce
the inset photo of figure 3.16; to Carlos Furuti, for redrawing figure 4.12 for me;
to Waldemar J. Poerner, for permission to reproduce the images of figures 5.4,
6.5, and the “briny deep” photo of chapter 5. Thanks also to the staff at the Johns
Hopkins University Press for their friendly professionalism, and to Carolyn
Moser for (as always) thorough and thoughtful copyediting.
The Science of Navigation
INTRODUCTION
Point of Departure
From rural western Canada to New York City, it didn’t occur to me that the
airplanes flying my wife Jane and me across the continent applied the latest in
navigational technology, really an accumulation of millennia of knowledge.
Nowadays, traveling over a significant fraction of the earth’s surface involves no
great mental or physical effort on our part. We pay our fares, take our seats, and
ruminate more on the inconveniences imposed by Homeland Security than on
the marvels of flight or, the subject of this book, of navigation. The latter struck
home on a much shorter journey, when we needed to reach a small art gallery in
Brooklyn from midtown Manhattan. Perhaps it is not surprising that we were
completely incapable of the feat. We were gawping up at skyscrapers instead of
the more familiar red cedars of home and were overwhelmed by the bustle and
vibrancy of the big city, a classic illustration of two hayseeds in from the sticks.
More surprisingly, our cabbie also did not know his way around; he turned to his
dashboard GPS system to flawlessly guide us.
Three thousand years ago, humans developed the ability to move long
distances by sea—and the need to get back home again. We as a species were no
longer simply wandering aimlessly from place to place, gathering food as we
went, and moving on when we had exhausted the local supply. Three thousand
years ago, during the Bronze Age, we had well-established cities and ships and
trading structures. At first, we tentatively felt our way along familiar coastlines.
A few—I will tell some of their stories—ventured farther afield and were able to
find their way back home. These epic journeys formed the stuff of legends, and
yet today they would take only a few hours and involve negotiating nothing
more hazardous than a chicken sandwich.
Navigation can be defined as the science (perhaps initially an art) of
maneuvering safely and efficiently from one part of the world to another.
Originally the word referred to ships,1 including steering and the setting of sails
—all the skills needed to get a ship from home port to destination. This book is
about our three-thousand-year-long journey from navigational infancy (setting
out from a harbor in a sailing craft, navigating by the Pole Star and landmarks)
to maturity (setting out from Times Square in a cab, navigating by GPS). I
describe not only the astounding feats of seamanship and of determination in
adverse circumstances of the early explorers, sailors, and conquerors, but also
the technical advances made by them, and by many others behind the scenes,
who developed the science of navigation.
My intent is to provide you with an understanding of the physical principles
that are needed to appreciate navigation and how they came to be understood. I
hope that you will close this book with a deeper appreciation of the physical,
engineering, and mathematical ideas that have contributed to developments in
these fields and will see several layers beneath the surface of modern
navigational techniques. In these pages I survey a large area—covering a lot of
ground. Continuing the metaphor: the map I construct is large scale, so it
necessarily omits much detail. Thus, for example, the fascinating, lengthy, and
multifaceted story of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India is here
compressed into a few pages. Another example: the well-documented and
historically important survey of England is omitted entirely. If you crave details,
then please consult the extensive bibliography. (Had I attempted a
comprehensive coverage of all the disciplines discussed in these pages, this book
would have required 10 volumes. More: 100 volumes. Under a single cover I can
only explain the fundamental, overarching ideas and hope to whet your appetite.)
The first chapters encompass preliminary material we will need later on:
geodesy and cartography. They set the table. These subjects, important in their
own right, are the appetizers before the main course of navigation (apologies for
the pun). I show you how navigation evolved and, along the way, tell the stories
of many historically important explorers who employed the navigational tools
and techniques I discuss.
In chronological order our explorers are the unknown Phoenicians who
ventured into the southern hemisphere; two Carthaginians, Hanno and Himilco,
who expanded their trading contacts beyond the Mediterranean and along the
Atlantic coast; Pytheas, the Greek who ventured to the Arctic Circle; Zhang
Qian, the Chinese who explored the eastern lands of Alexander the Great; the
South Pacific explorers; Ibn Battuta; Bartolomeu Dias, Columbus and Vespucci,
Vasco da Gama, and Magellan; Sir Francis Drake; James Cook; Nain Singh
Rawat. These men cover 2,500 years of history and make their appearance in the
book at just the right place—very appropriately for explorers.
When we reach the end of the book, we will find that we have been preceded
by bats, dolphins, cuckoos, warblers, and other animals that evolved extremely
impressive navigational skills long before humans arrived on the world stage.
There are plenty of books which detail the astonishing exploratory journeys
that have been made over the centuries (many of the better books are included in