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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: A simpler Bygrave ?
From: Hanno Ix
Date: 2010 Feb 8, 21:38 -0800
From: Hanno Ix
Date: 2010 Feb 8, 21:38 -0800
I will demonstrate the "simpler" Bygrave in time. Just to poke fun at Gary Lapook a little I just might start out with a flat version! :)
Simplicity may come from having a single scale and additionally just two (independent) cursors. It would be certainly simpler to make. If you know a little about older circular slide rules than you will remember how with them multiplications/division where accomplished just this way.
Now, there may be, on the other side, other components of CelNav procedures that become more complicated - who knows. As I pointed out before, the procedure could follow the StarPath Emergency Navigation card procedure which has also just one scale: N as a function of x. This is equivalent to the logarithm of the cosec as a function of the angle in question - just a different notation.
The scale of the "simpler" Byrave would not just have 89 data points, a la StarPath, but a much finer resolution. It also would, of course, handle the required multiplications/divisions as does the existing Bygrave.
BTW: Any formula that needs only one scale could be, theoretically, adaptable. More, if this scale is made for cosec, it can be used for formulas using three other trig functions, too, namely: sec, cos and sin. This is done by flipping and/or shifting the angle scale as appropriate. I don't know if this the case in the Dreisenstok procedure.
Regards
H