NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: facing Mecca
From: John Huth
Date: 2009 Sep 30, 19:34 -0400
From: John Huth
Date: 2009 Sep 30, 19:34 -0400
Greg's right. I did some digging and found out - there is some coupling to the concept that you would "see" Mecca if you could look through the Earth, but there is somehow a projection to the surface that's part of the canon I don't quite understand.
In terms of the geometry of "facing" Mecca, I guess there are two singularities - one is right at Mecca, where "facing" is indeterminate, but I guess that's OK because the tomb of the Prophet has a finite area. The other singularity, as George and Greg point out, is at the antipodal point.
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In terms of the geometry of "facing" Mecca, I guess there are two singularities - one is right at Mecca, where "facing" is indeterminate, but I guess that's OK because the tomb of the Prophet has a finite area. The other singularity, as George and Greg point out, is at the antipodal point.
On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Greg Rudzinski <gregrudzinski@yahoo.com> wrote:
Technically the correct direction would be a chord through the earth
to Mecca on an absolutely straight line. A great circle would be a
good place to start. The act of bowing down would cover mecca at some
point during the bow. If I were muslim that would be how I would do
it.
On Sep 30, 3:29 pm, Apache Runner <apacherun...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The only reason I asked was because a student came to me and said he prayed
> to the SE (I'm on Boston) and his friends prayed to the NE - he thought he
> was right, and then I realized that there's this issue about rhumb lines vs.
> the great circle. After digging around, I round that great circle seemed
> to be the preferred direction for various religious reasons.
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