Vikings S1 E1 'Rites of Passage' - Early Access
Added 2019-05-05 20:17:58 +0000 UTC
Comments
I love astronomy. But I am curious about this 10 fingers thing LOL
2019-05-05 20:55:26 +0000 UTCI'm guessing the device they showed around 8:40 into the video was used to keep a rough measure of their latitude during the daytime. The further north they'd drift, the longer that shadow would be as the sun would be at lower angle, and if they drifted south, the sun would be more overhead and the shadow would be shorter. At night, they just had to measure the angle of Polaris (the North Star) and that equaled their latitude. Measuring latitude by the sun/stars is pretty easy, but it wasn't until mechanical clocks became accurate that they could find a way to calculate longitude. The way they'd do it would be to set their clock to solar noon from the place they left. Then as they went west, they could see how many minutes or hours later their solar noon was now and calculate it out. Of course now we have GPS and navigating anywhere is very easy. :) FYI: historical astronomy is one of my passions. If I ever decided to write a book (and could think of a way to make it interesting) it would be based on that and how the objects in the sky (and the fact we have 10 fingers) defined so much of what we accept today.
Craig Kostelecky
2019-05-05 20:48:42 +0000 UTCI feel like Steve and I should join forces with the Lannister army to defeat these Vikings once and for all.
Craig Kostelecky
2019-05-05 20:36:44 +0000 UTC
![さとと [satoto]](https://xaiju.com/istorage/108048.jpg)
