Do we really need West and South when we can use negative North and negative East?
And I say we don’t have enough names, we should have names for at least 30° and 45° increments.
Most Mediterranean cultures used to have names for at least eight winds, each at 45 degrees from each other. Greeks (and therefore Romans) used twelve, at 30 degrees.
Here’s a classic navigator’s wind rose, for instance, with 32 different directions based on eight named winds (might be a bit hard to read on dark backgrounds, here’s the original SVG):
We do, they’re just combinations of the 90 degree ones.
Southwest. North-Northeast.
Yeah, there are 32 named points on a compass, one every 11.25 degrees, you can even fractionalize it to get even more granular
Southwest by west half west for example is 242 degrees
Why do we have subtraction when we can just add a negative number?
This is just the Minecraft coordinates system and it sucks. “OK I’m at the coords, where’s the–oh fuck, it was -3002, 108 not 3002, 108.”
I would not be surprised compasses were invented before negative numbers
Why do we have down when we can just use negative up?
For most of human history people who couldn’t do math, or read, or understand a map, have been communicating directions to each other.
4 directions is just enough to tell someone which way to face, without being too many to remember.
without being too many to remember
People used to have no problem remembering the names of at least eight winds, depending on the direction…
Here are the ones used in Catalonia, for instance; we were taught them at school:
Though, to be fair, llevant means where the sun rises and ponent where it sets, migjorn means midday, which makes sense given the other two, and everyone already knew tramuntana, cause it’s a headache when it blows, so it’s mostly the other four we have to remember… the Greek one seems quite harder, though, then again, I’m not Greek…:
We just say “North-East” for gregal or “North, North-East” if it’s half between North and gregal. Other would be North-West, South-West, and South-East.
So you’d have states like North Dakota and Negative North Dakota?
The Negative shall rise again!
Why stop at two, when you could stop at just one?
North
Negative North = south
Negative 90 North = west
90 North =east
Better idea! What if we use 0 for North and then divide the circle around by exactly 360 points? That way we don’t need NSEW, we have 0, 90, 180, 270!
Ah… I love airplanes… To be clear, the issue with this is that magnetic 0 is not the same as true 0. There’s a slight offset that can cause issues. So why not have like… True 0 and magnetic 0. T0 and m0?
Fun fact… there is an ICAO effort to “get rid” of magnetic headings for runway numbers. I listened to a presentation they did last year, and as much as I went into it thinking it wasn’t needed, I was a convert listening to them.
Btw, magnetic variation is pretty significant in some places. It’s 13 degrees where I am.
What’s the new one? I must have missed the presentation. Probably because I wasn’t invited.
I don’t remember where I watched the presentation. I think it might have been one of Brian Schiff’s videos, but I don’t remember. Here’s a link to it I found online. https://www2023.icao.int/safety/OPS/OPS-Section/Pages/Truenorth.aspx
Why not?
Because what happens when your referent changes? Which direction is Mars from Earth? We obviously need a single navigational system that works anywhere in the universe.
Easy! Assuming the earth is the center of the universe, coordinates are 360,360
± the current position of the Earth in the solar system ± the current position of the solar system in the Milky Way. In the Local Cluster, in the Local Group, in the Virgo Supercluster, in the Local Mesh
In order to return, we just go that way:
There is no center of the universe.
Mars would be that way I assume
Plus or minus?
We could use one, and assume we’re operating in the field of complex numbers:
North
i North
i2 North
i3 North.And we could use the complex modulus to indicate distance… or we could map the Riemann sphere onto the surface of the earth and use a single complex number to indicate location.
Directions from maps: turn pi at the nearest i intersection
Now you’re talking!
Yes! Now we are getting somewhere.
Why stop at one when you could stop at just zero and not use a compass?
This reply was brought to you by The Lost MC.
In emergencies when you need to use a compass you can save time by using these maximally efficient cardinal names:
This is basic coordinate usage. Negative latitudes are South. And 180 or -180 is half a planet away from the prime meridien. West of England are negative longitudes.
east and eastn’t
East and weast.
Dammit Patrick…
180° of Arctica and then 180°of Antarctica. Reasonable.
What goes up, must come negative-Up
One step forward and two steps un-forward.
Why don’t clocks have just 4 numbers?
Whatever, Nancy.
If the four cardinal points bother you, better not look up wind roses or rhumbline networks…
Mind officially blown. 🤯
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