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The magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han dynasty and Tang dynasty (since about 206 BC). [1] [3] [34] The compass was used in Song dynasty China by the military for navigational orienteering by 1040–44, [22] [35] [36] and was used for maritime navigation by 1111 to 1117. [37]
Ritchie thought they could be improved upon, and by 1860 had received a U.S. patent for the first successful and practicable liquid-filled marine compass suitable for general use, [10] [11] a development that has been described as the first major advance in compass technology in several hundred years. [12]
A modern military compass, with included sight device for aligning. A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with magnetic north.
Elmer Ambrose Sperry Sr. (October 12, 1860 – June 16, 1930) was an American inventor and entrepreneur, most famous for construction, two years after Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, of the gyrocompass and as founder of the Sperry Gyroscope Company. [3]
The first mention of a compass in Europe was in 1190 AD by Alexander Neckam. He described it as a common navigational aid for sailors, so the compass must have been introduced to Europe some time earlier. Whether the knowledge came from China to Europe, or was invented separately, is not clear.
Titterington designed the Earth inductor compass in 1924. In 1928 he took off in a Travel Air, headed across the Pennsylvania mountains and crashed to his death during bad weather after being struck by lightning. [2] [3]
Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence) on 15 February 1564, [16] the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a leading lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati, the daughter of a prominent merchant, who had married two years earlier in 1562, when he was 42, and she was 24.
The son of Aglaos, Eratosthenes was born in 276 BC in Cyrene.Now part of modern-day Libya, Cyrene had been founded by Greeks centuries earlier and became the capital of Pentapolis (North Africa), a country of five cities: Cyrene, Arsinoe, Berenice, Ptolemias, and Apollonia.