NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: That magic number: 3438
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2016 Nov 4, 13:41 -0700
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2016 Nov 4, 13:41 -0700
David,
You wrote: Which I suppose is because in this case 3438 is being used as a constant and is effectively dimensionless.
It's really just that the ratio (length of ship/distance to ship) doesn't depend on the units. As Frank noted the appearance of 3438 in the formula is "thanks to the way the nautical mile is defined",
Regards,
Robin
