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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Lunar tables for month of Brumaire, year IX
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2014 Jul 31, 11:07 -0700
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2014 Jul 31, 11:07 -0700
Isn't it a bit odd that degrees, minutes and seconds were still being used? I might have expected gradians that were supposedly introduced at the same time as the metric system. Maybe sextants, dip and refraction tables weren't yet available in gradians.
I often think it's a pity that gradians weren't adopted for celestial navigation. No more sexigesimal arithmetic and kilometres instead of nautical miles (1 km = 1/100 grad on the Earth's surface).
Robin Stuart
