NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Reaching the pole. (was Nautical Almanac)
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2002 Jul 2, 21:42 -0300
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2002 Jul 2, 21:42 -0300
George Huxtable asked, amidst much else: > What temperature does Mercury freeze at? -39 Celsius or thereabouts. (-38.842 according to the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, though I dare say that the third decimal place depends a bit on assorted factors.) I'm not sure of summer temperatures at the Pole but winter ones on the Canadian prairies are said to drop below -40 (the point at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are numerically equal) from time to time and I'd guess that the Pole is colder. So the mercury in Amundsen's artificial horizon could well have turned into a useless lump of solid metal. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus