NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: A Science or an Art
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2010 Dec 9, 21:38 -0500
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2010 Dec 9, 21:38 -0500
I have some sympathy with the sentiment expressed in Brendan�s original post but I would not banish the mathematicians.� Or anyone else for that matter. I am a newbie at this.� Many of the posts to navlist go right over my head or, though I see where they are going, make my eyes glaze over. I do find it intimidating at times.� But the few times I have mustered the temerity to post something, I received courteous and helpful responses.� When I asked about how to acquire a sextant and what sort I should look for, the number, length, and richness of the responses was extraordinary.� (BTW, I bought a used Davis Mark 3 for next to nothing and have been using it for several months now.� I think I am hooked and I am now looking for the real thing.) I do intend to use CN for actual navigation but I am a sailor who is fascinated by all things nautical.� �I �see CN as a discipline to foster more careful attention to the world around me, as a path to more thoughtful seamanship, and as a way to connect with the great sailors of the past who developed and relied on these techniques.� I am also an historian of 18th Century philosophy. I am always trying to enter more deeply into the thought-world of that period.� The 18th Century is the heroic age of navigation, surveying, and charting and of the design and manufacture of the accouterments of these activities.� CN is a model of, and a pregnant metaphor for, its philosophical ambitions. I am glad for even the most picky, prickly and persnickety of the postings on this slightly mad and obsessive list.� Often I am laugh-out-loud delighted. Thanks to all who post here! Patrick Charles Olson: "Love the World -- and stay inside it."