Next message: Herbert Prinz: "Re: Lord Kelvin's lunars game (and an old joke)"
On May 26, 2005, at 8:41 PM, Frank Reed wrote:
> In 1908, shortly after the death of the famous classical physicist
> Lord
> Kelvin (William Thomson), "The Observatory" published a note on a
> little game
> involving longitude by lunar distance observations which Kelvin
> had proposed for
> a math competition at Cambridge in 1874. The challenge he proposed
> was:
> " Describe the method of 'lunars' for finding longitude at sea,
> explaining
> the use of each of the observations to be made, and the character
> of the
> tabular data required. Why is this method rarely used in modern
> navigation?
> Show how a castaway in the N. hemisphere could, on any clear
> night, with no
> other instrumental appliances than a piece of small cord,
> determine his
> latitude approximately, and on moonlight nights, with favourable
> stars, his
> longitude, if he has a Nautical Almanac. Estimate limits of error
> for each
> determination."
I like the competition, and the joke!
Is there any record of any good answers to his proposed competition?
Did anyone compete?
Dan
