Arguably the single greatest aid to natural, or primitive, navigation is the star at the center of the solar system, the Sun. As we’ve discussed numerous times, over the course of this series thus far, the use of even something as simple as your own shadow, throughout the day, provides clues to direction, if you’re educated, and aware, enough, to recognize the potential, and then leverage it to your advantage. Further, of course, the sun plays a role in the growth of vegetation—or the dearth of any vegetative growth—as well as the winds and weather. It can be said then, that the sun is the underlying key to all natural navigational methods. As such, it is important that we take a look not just at why this is the case, but also at some of the fundamental navigation techniques that take advantage of this. Most people over a certain age are probably aware of an incontrovertible “fact” about the sun, that is the underlying idea behind most navigation with the sun. That is, the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. Every day, everywhere on the planet, this is the case, and it never changes. This concept has percolated through the mindset and mythology of mankind for millenia. There’s a minor problem with this idea of course. It’s simply not the case. The sun doesn’t rise, and it doesn’t set. Within the span of our solar system, the sun in fact, doesn’t move at all1. How is it then, even when we’re taught as children, in the modern world at least, that the earth revolves around the sun, that we spend our entire lives reliant on the idea that the sun is the one moving? If we hope to be able to use the sun for navigation, we probably need to overcome this paradox. It’s not the first time that mankind has found himself wrestling with his ideas of his place in the universe. It may not even be the last, although like Francis Fukuyama, many adherents to the religion of Science, seem to think we’ve somehow reached the “end of history,” and these facts are incontrovertible truth, rather than simple hypotheses that so far have not been refuted. Modern science of course, recognizes the posthumous publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolionibus Orbium Coelestium Libri VI as the introduction of the idea of the sun being the center of our solar system, rather than the heliocentric model previously assumed. While, for the western scientific world, there’s some degree of truth in this, the fact is, there is ample circumstantial evidence to indicate that the educated, post “Dark Ages” western scientific world were kind of the last folks to the party. From Chinese and Arabic models and calculations that indicated they understood far more of what the modern world accepts as “truth,” to the navigational successes of Scandinavian, Arab, and even South Sea Islander mariners, there’s ample evidence that many people in the world may have understood much more of these realities than western science did. Nevertheless, we are westerners, and most of us were educated in the modern western models, so it’s important to understand them, to some degree. The Copernican Revolution is a crucial part of that. It began with Nicolaus’ explanations of how the earth spins on its axis, and orbits around the sun, rather than the sun orbiting around the earth. Of course, even western science recognizes that Copernicus was riding the shoulders of others’ work. The first acknowledged, extent theory of a heliocentric solar system was the work of third century BC Greek, Aristarchus of Samos, upon whose work Copernicus built. Further, the Copernicus was not even alive to witness the introduction of his revolutionary thought models to the world. It wasn’t until some time after his death that his idea really began to impact the western scientific world, when Galileo’s improvements to telescope design allowed him to say, “Wait! Wait! Wait! Ol’ Nic might have had some good points!” The two key observations that Galileo made with his new and improved (!) telescope that refuted and overthrew the traditional western model of the universe up to that point were the groundbreaking (no pun intended) observation that the surface of the moon was splattered and splintered with craters, and that Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, had orbiting moons of its own. While neither of these discoveries seems particularly surprising or paradigm shifting today, that’s because we’ve had centuries of education supporting them. In Galileo’s time though, they refuted two of the major religious perspectives of the day. First, the earth had previously been considered the center of the universe, surrounded by the perfect heavens of God’s creation. The fact that the moon was not a perfect sphere, but was, in fact, as troubled and soiled as the human heart, with fissures, craters, and dark pits, was evidence that the surrounding heavens were not maybe as perfect as had been assumed. Second, the fact that Jupiter had it’s own moons orbiting it, ignorant of the supposed importance of planet earth’s position as center of the universe, meant that perhaps—just maybe—earth was not, after all, the center of the solar system, let alone the entirety of the universe. These ideas and observations of course, were not easily accepted in the western world of Galileo’s time. Most are probably at least passingly aware of his arrest and conviction by the Inquisition, which resulted in his enforced recanting of his theories, and the remnant of his life being spent under house arrest by The Church. What may not be as well known is the fact that The Church did not acknowledge their error until Pope John Paul II issued an apology for his arrest…in 2000. Despite the best efforts of The Church however, the rapidity of the growth in understanding of celestial behavior didn’t stop, or even really slow much. Germany’s Johannes Kepler would recognize and reveal that the planets orbited elliptically, rather than circularly, and Isaac Newton would develop the theory of gravity, after an apple fell on his head, during an afternoon nap2, that would explain why all of these previous theories worked. The contemporary view of the solar system was largely intact and complete by the time of Newton’s death in the 1727. When we step back further though, and try to figure out not just how the sun was used for navigation, but how such techniques actually worked, the sources become scarce. Herodotus wrote about an Egyptian exploration around 600BC, when Necho II supposedly ordered a Phoenician expedition to circumnavigate Africa, from the Red Sea to the mouth of the Nile. The journey took three years. Herodotus wrote that the Phoenicians reported that after turning West, at what would later become known as the Cape of Good Hope, they discovered the Sun was on their right, opposite of where they were accustomed to see it, since their typical journeys would never have reached so far south of the equator. It is the accuracy of this prosaic, but very fundamentals detail, that leads modern historians to accept that the journey actually happened. A few centuries later, Pytheas made a journey that would become even more well known by history, since it would lead to the idea of the Hyperboreans being introduced to Greece. Traveling from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle, he stopped in both Britain and Ireland on his trip. This was an unheard of journey in the circles of Greek academics at the time, leading many of his contemporaries to doubt the veracity of his stories and observations. While many modern observers today also doubt the truth of his journey, it is Pytheas’ rather mundane, and easily recreated, observations, that lend credence to the truth of his journey. Pytheas used a simple shadow stick, known as a gnomon—the center device of any sundial—to measure the length of shadows, because he knew that the length of a shadow was indicative of his latitude northerly. The farther north he went, the longer the shadow grew. Most important, from a scientific perspective, it did so in a predictable, regular way. Unfortunately, like most original documents of history, Pytheas’ original writings have been long lost, so all we have of his teachings are what were shared by students, in fragments and pieces, with none of his personal observations or thoughts on those observations surviving. It would not be for well over a thousand years until the next reference to the “midnight sun” would be found in western literature3, Some 2000 years later, the British Army’s Long-Range Desert Group (LRDG), operating in the vast wastelands of the Sahara to strike, seemingly at will, used the indigenous wisdom of their local guides and allies, coupled with their understanding of the magnetic compass, to overcome the weakness of the compass, in a large, iron mobility vehicle like the “Pink Panther” Land Rovers they used. A sun compass is a simple gnomon, shadow stick, adhered to a flat, circular disc base, upon which markings could be adjusted to account for variables in latitude and time, providing a shadow-stick compass. All of this of course, does nothing but verify that the sun can be used for navigation, which we already know. What becomes important to practical application is understanding the “behavior” of the sun, in order to find constants that can be useful for our purposes. Relative motion is one of the most disconcerting visual “tricks” for our minds to overcome. As we drive along the Interstate, we “see” passing trees rapidly moving to our rear, even though our conscious minds recognize that the trees are not actually moving. We are. Likewise, the movement of the sun across the daytime sky, as well as it’s rising and setting, are not due to the movement of the sun, but rather, the rotation of the earth. The earth spins on its axis once every 24 hours—roughly. It also revolves around the sun once every 365 days—again, roughly. These two movements create the patterns of day and night, dusk and dawn, and in the latter case, the solar year. Equally important though, is the fact that the earth’s axis is at a roughly 23 degree angle to its travel path around the sun. This angle is what causes days to be longer in summer—when the axis is tilted towards the sun—and shorter in winter, when the axis is tilted away from the sun. Understanding this aspect of the relationship between sun and earth is crucially important to understanding where the sun is—or should be—in the sky, at any given time during the day, which means it is crucially important to being able to accurately navigate by the sun. These relationships are most easily understood by looking at the solstices and equinoxes of the solar year. During the summer solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere, the northern pole of the axis is closest the sun. This means that the Northern Hemisphere is exposed to a greater period of daylight each rotation, and the northern pole itself receives 24 hours of direct sunlight, for a given period of days. During the winter solstice on the other hand, the opposite is true. The southern pole is closest the sun, and as a result the northern pole receives no solar exposure for some period of days, and the more northern latitudes receive far less solar exposure than during the summer. Currently, in the second week of December, at my location, sunrise occurs around 0830 locally, and sunset occurs shortly before 1630.4 In between these two extremes, occur the equinoxes, in March and September. On these two days, the poles are actually equidistant from the sun, providing an equal 12 hours of daylight and darkness. While many people are familiar with the terms solstice and equinox, and some are even familiar with the effects of these, too many simply do not know that they are a result of that simple 23 degree angle of the earth’s axis. Knowing that though, and knowing roughly what time of year it is, will allow you to estimate the direction of the sun from anywhere on earth. This angle is what makes the miracles of life on earth as we know it, occur. If there was no angle to the earth’s axis, but it was instead 0 degrees, there would be no seasonal variation to life, because the seasons would simply not occur. On the opposite hand though, if the angle were 45 degrees, roughly twice what it is, the seasonal variations would be so extreme that most life on earth would simply not be able to adapt to it. Alaska, as an extreme example, in much of the state, goes from bitter, deadly cold in the darkness of winter, to heat stroke warmth in summer.5 What people overlook is that all of this is a matter of simple mathematics, applied to the real world. The philosopher Spinoza, who posited that the entirety of the universe could be explained by simple mathematics, had the right idea. An example of this can be seen in the tropics. “Tropical” doesn’t refer to temperature or relative humidity. Instead, it refers to that span of the earth between the lines of latitude known as the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Each of these lines is 23 ½ degrees north and south from the equator. During the summer solstice, the angle of the earth’s axis places the sun closest to earth along the Tropic of Cancer. If you were standing on that line of latitude, the sun would pass directly over your head. During the winter solstice, the exact same is true of the Tropic of Capricorn. On the equinoxes though, you’d have to be standing on the equator itself, in order for the sun to pass directly over your head. The Arctic and Antarctic circles, on the other hand, are each 23 ½ degrees from their respective poles. These are the lines north and south of which, the midnight sun prevails and where, in their respective winters, areas between these lines of latitude, and their respective poles, no sunlight occurs for a period of time. Understanding this, we can then extrapolate, based on simple mathematics, and the length of the sun’s exposure during the day, not only where we are on the planet’s in reference to the equator—i.e. latitude—but also, the day of the year, or the date.6 In the next installment of this series, we’ll look at some of the basic methods this knowledge can be leveraged, to provide clues for navigation, in detail. 1Within the greater sphere of the universe, or even just the Milky Way galaxy, of course, the sun does move, because the entire solar system moves. Within the span of the solar system though, it doesn’t. 2I kid, of course. As I recall, there is no evidence, other than bowdlerized explanations of the story, that Newton actually had an apple fall on his head, as the impetus for his developing the theory of gravity. 3Which, of course, is the major problem with relying on historical written records for our understanding of how the ancients viewed the world. The Greeks may not have believed, or understood Pytheas’ observations of a midnight sun, but the indigenous Sami, or the Yakuts of Siberia, or the Eskimos of North America, would not only have understood it, but had their own explanations of it, and they may very well have understood why it occurred. We don’t know, because they didn’t record their stories in the written form, and subsequent written records by “educated” explorers and ethnographers have always been replete with inherent prejudices about ignorant savages. 4Adjusted for Daylight Savings Time. Without Franklin’s old adjustment, it would actually be occurring closer to 0930 and 1730, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re getting less than eight hours of sunlight, out of a 24 hour cycle, as opposed to mid-summer, when we receive closer to sixeen hours of sunlight! 5While the coldest actual temperature I personally experienced in Alaska’s Interior was a bit lower than -40, it is not unheard of for it to reach -50 or even -60F. In summer, Interior temperatures can reach into the 90s. Ironically, that’s hotter than the record high in many places in the northern Rockies. In our closest village, the record high temperature is a paltry 89F. Regardless, that Alaskan interior temperature range of 150 plus degrees, over the course of a year, allows for a wide range of flora and fauna to survive and thrive. If the angle of the earth’s axis was 45 degrees though, that temperature extreme range would probably at least double, if not triple, obviously making life, at least as we know it, impossible. 6To be fair, while I understand this fact, and recognize that there are simple mathematical equations that can determine this for us, I don’t personally know the math involved, and have never felt compelled to learn it. Instead, the simpler aspects of navigation are all I’ve ever personally needed. https://www.patreon.com/posts/primi...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
