Quoting Jim Palfreyman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on Tue 19 Aug 2008 11:24:31 PM PDT:
> Wow. > > Don't tell me people still use miles? Nautical or otherwise? > > What's wrong with the good old kilometre? > > Jim Simple...Britannia ruled the seas, while the Cassinis measured the earth. Why the prime meridian is in Greenwich and we use meters for length. And, if you're navigating a boat, the fact that 1 minute of latitude is a nautical mile is fairly convenient. If you know your current position, and that where you want to be, and you can approximate the cosine of your latitude, you can figure out distances to within a few percent in your head, making a plane earth assumption, which is probably reasonable for a day's run in most boats. Do you want to try and navigate the Straits of Magellan or the local harbor this way.. probably not. But, for getting from one port to the next, it's "good enough" Jim Lux _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
