[HN Gopher] The Maritime Approximation
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The Maritime Approximation
Author : ingve
Score : 29 points
Date : 2025-01-02 14:17 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (kevlinhenney.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kevlinhenney.medium.com)
| justinl33 wrote:
| historically, maritime navigation has always required much higher
| precision since a small error compounds into missing an island
| entirely. land-based measurements could afford to be fuzzier
| because you can course-correct using visible landmarks. this is
| also why maritime measurements standardized globally much earlier
| than land measurements.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| That was a super long post to just say "the ratio of mph/knots
| [?] p/e ... and it's not very useful, but a cool coincidence."
| Philpax wrote:
| It's about the journey, not the destination.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| There's not much of a "journey" though ... because both mile
| and knot are just arbitrary assigned measurements.
|
| -----
|
| mile = 1,000 paces (as defined by Romans)
|
| knot = how many logs would pass by in 30 seconds.
|
| There's no mathematical reason why their value is what it is.
|
| Unlike p and e that do.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The nautical mile came first. It is one minute of longitude
| or latitude at equator.
|
| The speed was measured with knots at specific lengths.
| cb321 wrote:
| Interesting to see xkcd's Randall Munroe's live tour linked!
| bazzargh wrote:
| That approximation is only used in the USA, Liberia, and Myanmar
| tho. In the rest of the world, we use the metric maritime
| approximation,
|
| p * ph km = e nm
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(page generated 2025-01-05 23:01 UTC)