NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: That darned old cocked hat
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2010 Dec 10, 09:23 +1100
Therefore your 75% probability of the fix lying outside the triangle due to random error has to bend towards 100% as the triangle approaches a point. As I understand what John Karl seems to be saying.
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2010 Dec 10, 09:23 +1100
George Huxtable wrote:
George, you don't seem to have grasped John Karl's point. Once the triangle is so small that it approximates a point then the probability that the fix lies within it approaches zero, since the probability of two points, each with infinitely small area by definition, coinciding has to be infinitely small.
Three separate observations are made, one of each star. By our prior
condition, the probability of each being toward or away is 50:50. There is
no correlation between them. They could have been made by three separate
observers, each putting his observation into a sealed envelope, to be
opened together after the event. Then the probability of any combination,
of the 8 possible, is one in 8. How can it be different?
Therefore your 75% probability of the fix lying outside the triangle due to random error has to bend towards 100% as the triangle approaches a point. As I understand what John Karl seems to be saying.