The Largest Compass Rose on Earth [PICS]
deputy-dog.com — The compass has been painted on the bed of an enormous dry lake next to the research centre and measures a whopping 1.21km in diameter. according to wikipedia, ‘it is inclined to magnetic north (around 13 degrees east of true north) and is used by pilots for calibrating heading indicators’.
MakiMaki- 1313 diggs
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- MarianaPeyton, on 07/18/2008, -30/+8I know, this is going to get promoted, it was submitted by MakiMaki. But come on, I am tired of reading these stories which are clearly not news. I miss the old Digg when shouts did not existed.
- edwartica, on 07/18/2008, -1/+21I, however, enjoy this type of thing.
- Puffles, on 07/19/2008, -1/+15Digg is not a news-only website!
- wonderbriefs, on 07/19/2008, -0/+10You know how you fix that problem?
Click the "News" button. - mbiesz, on 07/19/2008, -0/+10Actually, this is one of the most interesting submissions I've seen in a while.
- Blandyman, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Mariana, how about you go cry me a ***** river.
If you wanted just news... then go to the -gasp!- NEWS SECTION.
You people all complain and bitch and moan about what others do "wrong" on digg, but the only one doing anything stupid is you. Just filter this section out and shut the ***** up.
- kd420, on 07/19/2008, -11/+5It would be better if it was in radians, though i doubt any pilots would be able to use it.
- Mononuclear, on 07/19/2008, -0/+16Pilots need to know quite a bit of trig and I would imagine most of them know what radians are and how to use them.
- floridiot2, on 07/19/2008, -2/+6i have a question.. why are degrees in 360 increments?
- Justice101, on 07/19/2008, -1/+13Because you touch yourself at night.
- MadOtaku, on 07/19/2008, -0/+8Some ancient culture used 60 for everything because it was evenly divisible by the first 6 numbers and then several others (like 10, 12, 15, etc). 360 was chosen because it was a multiple of 60. I think the culture was the Babylonians but I only heard the story once, so don't quote me on it.
- heliox, on 07/19/2008, -0/+10Because there are 360 of them around a circle. so...
- Justice101, on 07/19/2008, -2/+1the term for a 6 centered counting system is sexagismal(s/p)
- jdmcadam, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1The Babylonians had a 360 day calendar, so every night the stars would move 1/360th of a full circle (its actually 1/365.25th). That division was considered a degree.
- Xalorous, on 07/19/2008, -0/+5Navigation uses degrees. Get over it.
- booshack, on 07/19/2008, -1/+4Degrees are superior in every practical application.
- Smashure, on 07/19/2008, -7/+1I should get my g/f a dozen compass roses for her birthday. Red means love right?
- KayRaid, on 07/19/2008, -7/+1Long runway is loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong
- Renster84, on 07/19/2008, -6/+1no excuse for getting lost i reckon
- fatfreddyscat, on 07/19/2008, -6/+1That was made by aliens.
- NoDisk, on 07/19/2008, -0/+6No, but thousands of years from now when archaeologists crawl out from beneath their radiation shields, trek across the Nevada wastes and ford the Pacific Sewage, they will come, blinking, to the Island of California, look upon this structure, and wonder if it points either to aliens, or to a more advanced time...
- NoDisk, on 07/19/2008, -0/+6No, but thousands of years from now when archaeologists crawl out from beneath their radiation shields, trek across the Nevada wastes and ford the Pacific Sewage, they will come, blinking, to the Island of California, look upon this structure, and wonder if it points either to aliens, or to a more advanced time...
- heliox, on 07/19/2008, -0/+30Here it is in google map
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=d ...- bizarrorollins, on 07/19/2008, -0/+3"it is inclined to magnetic north (around 13 degrees east of true north)"
edited to correct my original mistake. - lordzelo, on 07/19/2008, -1/+2Nice. Even cooler than some lines dug in the sand is that it is next to Edwards Airforce Base which has the SR-71 Blackbird on display... You can see it on the Google Map if you look at the buildings directly to the right of the compass.
It's also where the used to land the Space Shuttle back in the day. - TylerM, on 07/19/2008, -1/+1For people with Google Earth that wanna mark it... (Google Maps doesn't have all my neat places I've found saved)
34°57'14.86"N
117°52'23.83"W- yaddayaddayoda, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1Crop circle.
- bizarrorollins, on 07/19/2008, -0/+3"it is inclined to magnetic north (around 13 degrees east of true north)"
- JoelCohen, on 07/19/2008, -8/+4the farms on the right of the photo remind me of Sim City 4
- CATSCEO2, on 07/19/2008, -2/+2Dugg for Sim City 4.
- gta3uzi, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1I want me a SimCity 5
And I want some things from SC3000 back. Like having computer cities that I don't have to ***** with but can still trade, etc.
- gta3uzi, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1I want me a SimCity 5
- CATSCEO2, on 07/19/2008, -2/+2Dugg for Sim City 4.
- Shaman760, on 07/19/2008, -10/+2The web developer could make that left margin a little more enormous so I doesn't feel as If one were missing part of the cool story.....I can has +25px margin? Kthxbye
- NolanRey, on 07/19/2008, -8/+3And yet the women pilots still seem to get lost
- shithitinthefan, on 07/19/2008, -4/+8Fail...
The people of Nazca already did it.- rameznabel, on 07/19/2008, -0/+5they did not understand you but i did so dugg for u
- GSXER, on 07/19/2008, -6/+3FTA: Calvin "is it visible from space?"
*sigh* :/
My Faith in Humanity < My faith in Humanity 1 Minute Ago - Trigononamous, on 07/19/2008, -1/+59False. Take a look at any globe, the largest Compass Rose is over the Southern Pacific Ocean.
- Justice101, on 07/19/2008, -1/+9I just checked a National Geographic sat. map of Earth, and I was a little shocked to see that it had no compass rose at all. How will I know which way is geographic north? Santa Claus could live in Australia for all I know now. :-(
- DestroyFascism, on 07/19/2008, -0/+2He did once but the Locals kept laughing at his red pants...
- Xalorous, on 07/19/2008, -10/+1That's so lame it isn't even funny.
- Justice101, on 07/19/2008, -1/+9I just checked a National Geographic sat. map of Earth, and I was a little shocked to see that it had no compass rose at all. How will I know which way is geographic north? Santa Claus could live in Australia for all I know now. :-(
- elperegrino, on 07/19/2008, -7/+2isn't drawing runways on a lake next to an airport rather dangerous?
- arjie, on 07/19/2008, -4/+2Is that compass rose accurate between the 45 degree increments? How did they ensure that it was, if so? I mean, it must be one heckuva job to manage to make the whole thing perfectly circular.
- shadowblade989, on 07/19/2008, -0/+8With simple geometry.
Also, its ***** NASA, the people who can accurately toss a big chunk of metal to distant objects in space.
- shadowblade989, on 07/19/2008, -0/+8With simple geometry.
- nate007, on 07/19/2008, -0/+6This is located about 30 miles from my house, at the NASA Dryden Research center/Edwards AFB in the Mojave Desert
- kookbutt, on 07/19/2008, -0/+11Too bad Magnetic North shifts on a daily basis and depends on where you are on the Earth. Magnetic North is only good for short distances and to get a general idea where north is. Hence, why sailors rarely use magnetic north to navigate but use the stars and the sun to navigate using a sexton or using a GPS nowadays.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/declination.shtml - geozerocool, on 07/19/2008, -5/+0WOW so good i'm shocked some said this already but i think so too better to be in radians :)
- rebirf, on 07/19/2008, -2/+2and in...RAND MCNALLY hamburgers eat people.
- EarthernJar, on 07/19/2008, -0/+2... and people wear hats on their feet
- manmademark, on 07/19/2008, -0/+2Mad Otaku, seems you were right.
" In 1936, a tablet was excavated some 200 miles from Babylon. Here one
should make the interjection that the Sumerians were first to make one of
man's greatest inventions, namely, writing; through written communication,
knowledge could be passed from one person to others, and from one
generation to the next and future ones. They impressed their cuneiform
(wedge-shaped) script on soft clay tablets with a stylus, and the tablets
were then hardened in the sun. The mentioned tablet, whose translation
was partially published only in 1950, is devoted to various geometrical
figures, and states that the ratio of the perimeter of a regular hexagon
to the circumference of the circumscribed circle equals a number which in
modern notation is given by 57/60 + 36/(60^2) (the Babylonians used the
sexagesimal system, i.e., their base was 60 rather than 10).
The Babylonians knew, of course, that the perimeter of a hexagon is
exactly equal to six times the radius of the circumscribed circle, in fact
that was evidently the reason why they chose to divide the circle into 360
degrees (and we are still burdened with that figure to this day). The
tablet, therefore, gives ... Pi = 25/8 = 3.125.
So that's who gave us the 360 degrees in the circle. See, assignment of
degree-measure to angles is somewhat arbitrary. Some choices are more
natural than others, though, and when you're working in base 60, 6x60 is a
pretty natural choice. "
As quoted from.... mathforum.org
Interesting that they had an entirely different writing and number system and can still get that point across to today's mathematicians- MadOtaku, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Not in the right thread, but thanks. I wondered how much of what I said was remembered correctly and I also learned a bit more from your post.
I'm actually quite surprised that I got that much of it right; my math professor told the story about 6 months ago as a small aside in class.
- MadOtaku, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Not in the right thread, but thanks. I wondered how much of what I said was remembered correctly and I also learned a bit more from your post.
- Mfb769, on 07/19/2008, -1/+2why would anyone do this?
- bilb, on 07/19/2008, -1/+4to calibrate the compasses on the plane
- phosphite, on 07/19/2008, -0/+3Hmm...since magnetic north is always moving bit by bit, I wonder how they account for magnetic deviation? It must suck to have to redraw that every year! :)
- GiggleStick, on 07/19/2008, -0/+3You only have to change the lines. The circle is the hard part.
- wondertwins, on 07/19/2008, -1/+1its like a giant sand pie. mmmmm
- Plastic3D, on 07/19/2008, -1/+11.21Km - They must have used that number to make it sound like a lot.
- djAnakin, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1I've actually stood there. It's crazy huge in person... you can't even see it all, which makes it look bigger.
- benjorino, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Burried as inaccurate.
My world map clearly shows there to be a much larger one in the southern pacific, just west of Chile. - sirclown82, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1I think this is cool.
- Dustinbones, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Wow
- ncat135, on 07/19/2008, -0/+0I've never understood this kind of thing.
Like, let's take something normal.... and make it HUGE!
I love miniature replicas of things. Those seem way more impossible to me than giant replicas. - jepizacar, on 08/18/2008, -0/+1nice resource....
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