NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2023 Jun 7, 14:59 -0700
They seem to be referring back to a "Sky News" report. I think this is the original:
https://news.sky.com/story/royal-navys-experimental-ship-carries-out-first-trial-of-quantum-navigation-system-12889487.
Sky News has a reputation for exaggeration and some sensationalism, but the overall story sounds reasonable. They're testing accelerometers which somehow employ ultra-cold Rubidium atoms. The goal presumably is to cool the cloud of atoms until they transition to a "BEC" or "Bose-Einstein Condensate" where they exist in one common "bosonic" quantum state. Off the top of my head, I have no idea why, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that such a BEC could make an exceptionally accurate accelerometer.
Why would we want accelerometers? Of course, accelerometers are the basis for every INS, inertial navigation system. You measure accelerations in three linear axes and three rotational axes and from those you add up by integrating twice, and the result is your change in position and orientation. Inertial navigation has existed since the 1950s. Positions derived from it tend to drift over time. Better accelerometers yield less drift. Less drift means better navigation.
Frank Reed
