In retrospect I can only be glad that we used Greenwich Mean Time and nautical miles for our infernal calculations for latitude and longitude. I don't even want to guess what it is like to have used kilometers and a constantly changing time zone. I'm sure the French could tell me all about it though.
When you think about it, the British took a jump on everybody by stating a principle and then making it universal simply by declaring Time gentlemen, Time.
"Greenwich Mean Time or GMT is the mean (average) solar time at the Greenwich Meridian or Prime Meridian, 0 degrees longitude.
The time displayed by the Shepherd Gate Clock at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, is always GMT. When the sun is at its highest point exactly above the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory, it is 12:00 noon at Greenwich."
Local Apparent Noon was once a big thing everywhere, now, not so much.
2 comments:
Those days, when we were more in contact with our world, were better days.
I swung a sextant on an amphibious ship and I cannot even imagine trying it on a minesweeper heading up the Pacific coastline in a storm, not that you could see the stars anyway. Getting an actual fix once a week is no way to navigate. I just wonder at the poor Spanish finding landfall in the Caribbean and staying there for 400 years......Hurricane alley.
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