NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: longitude positive west?
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2008 Jun 12, 12:28 -0400
From: Herbert Prinz
Date: 2008 Jun 12, 12:28 -0400
George Huxtable wrote [in msg 5399]: >it seems madness to measure hour-angles as positive Westwards, and >longitudes as positive Eastwards. Can anyone really justify it? > > The fact that now we all measure longitudes the same way is probably the best possible justification. Speculating about the philosophical reason is likely to be counter productive: It may weaken the consensus. Someone might come up with the really bad idea to change the convention again in the interest of "better science". The choice of sign is not the only problem connected with longitude. The abbreviations for the cardinal points pose a similar one. East and west are 'est' and 'ouest' in French, 'Osten' and 'Westen' in German. An 'O' would signify west in French and east in German. To avoid potential confusion, the communities of navigators of both tongues have since long switched to exclusive use of 'E' for east and 'W' for west even when writing in their own native language. George, could you accept the sign convention in the same pragmatical spirit? Herbert Prinz --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---