NavList:

"No offense to Sean, but I was completely puzzled by his in-ability to see how an arcsine was performed!" -Brad

None taken. I was just as puzzled. :)

"The Manheim (not sure of the spelling) Slide Rule was designed by an Austrian Artillery Officer, to facilitate gunnery calculations. I guess that they would still serve for such purposes." -Alan

Funny you should mention that. I was just telling my girlfriend that I imagine artillery crews would probably make decent navigators. After all, they should already be familiar with all of the trig involved. In fact, I'd bet the calculations they perform are even more complex, considering they have to account for wind, elevation, the momentum of the projectile, etc. (And maybe more precise since they use mils instead of degrees.) That is...unless they use pre-calculated tables. IDK.

"The beauty of the slide rule is that precision is related to length. Hence the Bygrave can solve the celestial triangle to an arc-minute." -Brad

Ahh, that explains why he didn't just use a regular slide rule. BTW, there is a very neat slide rule simulator which is free to download called "Griffenfly". It's unique in that you can zoom in to the scales to achieve much greater accuracy than what is possible with an actual rule. Of course, you just have to make yourself 'forget' that you're doing all of this on the very machine that made the slide rule obsolete in the first place. :)

-Sean C.
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