NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The flat earth notion
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2003 Nov 9, 09:54 -0400
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2003 Nov 9, 09:54 -0400
Thank you, George. Now I understand your point about the infinitely-fast spinning. I was thinking in terms of the rhumb line spiralling around the pole an infinite number of times before reaching it (i.e. never reaching it in finite human experience), rather than about the hypothesized progression of a vessel along that rhumb at a constant linear speed. If such a speed could be maintained (which of course it could not), then the rate of spin would indeed become infinite, which would allow the vessel to complete the required infinite number of turns around the pole in a finite time. Makes sense to me! 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