Category Archives: History of Navigation
It’s not the Mercator projection; it’s the Mercator-Wright projection!
500 years ago on 5th March 1512 Gerard de Kremer was born in Rupelmonde, in those days a town in the Spanish Netherlands today in Belgium. He is of course much better known through his Latinised pseudonym Mercator. In German … Continue reading →
How far the moon?
Anyone coming to the history of the search for a method to accurately determine longitude through Dava Sobel’s Longitude might be forgiven for thinking that the lunar distance method was just some sort of excuse dreamed up by Neville Maskelyne … Continue reading →
The day that Jonas died
Even fairly ardent scholars of 17th century mathematics are unlikely to have heard of Jonas Moore who died on 25th August 1679. There is no Moore’s theorem or algorithm no branch of mathematics that counts him amongst its founders or … Continue reading →
