NAVIGATION WITHOUT MATHEMATICS?

Rear Admiral Alfred C. Richmond

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	I concede that navigation and mathematics are inextricably allied. The earliest Phoenician navigator, when out of sight of land, undoubtedly kept some sort of dead reckoning which required, if nothing more, simple arithmetical rules of addition. Further, while coasting, he undoubtedly used the simple bow and beam bearing on known land points, thus presupposing some knowledge of the relation of the parts of a triangle. It may even be that early in the history of navigation the relation of the altitude of the pole star to what we now call Iatitude was recognized; and navigators in the northern hemisphere, by crude measurement of this altitude, arrived at a rough approximation of their position north or south of some known point.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 3, Number 9
Pages:	310 - 317
Cite this article:	Richmond, Rear Admiral Alfred C., "NAVIGATION WITHOUT MATHEMATICS?", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 3, No. 9, 1953, pp. 310-317.
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