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Channel: History of Navigation – The Renaissance Mathematicus
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Correcting navigational errors, the Wright way

Today I’m continuing my occasional series on the English mathematical practitioners of the Early Modern Period. In the post in this series about Edmund Gunter (1581–1626) I quoted the historian of...

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The Seaman’s Secrets

Regular readers of my series of posts on English mathematical practitioners in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries might have noticed the name John Davis popping up from time to time....

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The first rule is of a good Navigator.

As in other fields of practical mathematics, such as cartography, astronomy, surveying, or even astrology, England lagged well behind other European countries when it came to the introduction of...

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The equestrian country gentleman, who turned his hand to navigation. 

The last third of the sixteenth century and the first third of the seventeenth century saw the emergence of published handbooks on the art of navigation in England. This trend started with the...

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Magnetic Variations – I Setting the scene

Magnetic Variations – I Setting the scene The magnetic compass was an important navigation instrument in the Early Modern Period, but it was not without its problems. In the last third of the...

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She sought it here, she sought it there, she found elusive longitude everywhere

In 1995, Dava Sobel, a relatively obscure science writer, published her latest book, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time[1]. Sobel is a...

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Magnetic Variations – II The Borough Brothers

In the previous post I outlined a brief history of magnetism, the magnet, the magnetic compass, and its introduction into navigation with the inherent problems caused by magnetic declination or...

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Magnetic Variations – III Robert Norman

Robert Norman’s The Newe Attractive (1581) was the most scientific study of magnetism and the magnetic compass between Petrus Peregrinus’ Epistola de magnete from 1269 and William Gilbert’s De Magnete...

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Magnetic Variations – IV William Barlow

William Barlow (1544 – 1625) had a successful career as an Anglican cleric. He was, so to speak, born into the church, his father, also William Barlow (c. 1498 – 1568), was Bishop of St Davids. He was...

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Magnetic Variations – V William Gilbert

We have now reached the pinnacle of investigations into magnetism and the magnetic compass, during the Early Modern Period, with the publication of William Gilbert’s De magnete in 1600. I will be...

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