How to find North | Live Experiments with Huw James | Head Squeeze

Have you found yourself on lost on the top of an active volcano and can't find your way home? Well, keep watching because Huw James takes us through everything we need to know on to find north.

Finding north using un-conventional methods is easy as long as you have a needle, leaf, analogue watch and big stick.

Magnetise a sewing needle and let it float on some water or a leaf and it will soon turn around to point north and south.

Using the hands on your analogue watch, align the long hand with in the direction of the sun, and the small hand directly opposite, and you'll soon find your bearings.

Stick a stick in the ground and mark the shadow with a rock and see which way the shadow moves on the ground and you will soon find north.

[typo]

Seems like you made mistakes in all 3 ways. The watch thing only works in north hemisphere. The needle will point north and south but which is which? and the annotation on the sticks is very confusing, like its for the southern hemisphere but which is the first rock/shadow and which is second?

[Alexaflohr]

If you can see the sun, know which hemisphere you are in, and know generally if the sun is setting or rising, then you can find north. Two of these methods use the sun anyway.

[DAFPvnk]

Another easy way is if you're in a town/city, all TV Satellite dishes face the equator (as that is where TV satellites orbit). So in the northern hemisphere all dishes point south, and in the southern hemisphere all dishes point north.

[merittuuling]

Obviously this video is flawed and, honestly, I learned to find north with more percision in third grade. But surely when you're going hiking you're most likely going to have a compass with you along with a map. Unless of course you think you're Bear Grylls, in which case I really hope you're well prepared and... how do I put it... not stupid.

[TechLaboratories]

NOTE: The shadow and watch method align with true north, because they're dependent on the rotation of the Earth, while the magnetic needle & compass align with magnetic north because of the Earth's magnetic poles.  Make's a difference.

[TheHuesSciTech]

Pedantic question: wouldn't daylight savings time considerably throw out the results of the clock method? And what about crossing the border to the neighbouring country/state in a different timezone? Should your estimate of where north is suddenly lurch by 15°, 1 hour's worth?

Pedantic answer: these issues will indeed throw the clock method off slightly. Ideally, the watch would be set to mean solar time, not the local country's time zone (which is mean solar time rounded to the nearest hour,  ±daylight savings).

Also, there's a reason it's called *Mean* Solar Time. Because the Earth's orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular, the sun is not at the same bearing relative to you at the same time on different days. Search for "Analemma" to see amazing pictures of the figure-eight path that the Sun follows through the sky.

None of this is intended as a criticism of the video, obviously the aim is to get a rough reading; the error caused by everything mentioned above is typically not a concern. Hopefully someone will find the true complexity of the Sun's path through the sky interesting, though.

Coincidentally, Mt Etna's peak is 14.995° East of the Greenwich meridian, which makes it very nearly dead on the 15° East line where Italian Time and True Mean Solar Time coincide.

[TurboTelytJim]

I didn't understand the rock and stick method. How would that work between say 2-30 and 3pm? If you waited all day, and placed your rocks and the ends of the shadows, you would have, not only a compass, but a clock, too. A sundial. The shortest shadow would be mid-day.

[intervera]

In the third method with the stick I believe they put the cardinal points of north and south backwards given they are in the northern hemisphere... The sun casts a northerly shadow so the N and S need to be switched.

[williamm]

Does the watch have to have the correct time?

[GetOutsideYourself]

Congratulations.  You just killed everybody in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, etcetera by sending them in the wrong direction with the watch technique.  In the Southern Hemisphere, the sun is in the north, so the bisecting line between the hour hand and the 12 mark points in that direction, not south, as a hemispherically challenged narrator might otherwise lead one to believe. 

[TheKaneDestroyer]

I've heard of mount etna back at school.

[JetBlackification]

with the analog watch method ... what if it's 6 oc'lock ... which way do i go?  

[FrancoisvanderMerwe]

Guys, what a legit video! Best headsqeeze has made to date! Thanx!

[davidkui]

3'd method is WRONG: when the sun rises from EAST, the edge of the first shadow will mark the WEST. when the sun sets in the WEST the second shadow will mark the EAST.
from your 3'd demostration the sun rises from east and the shadow falls also east which is  clearly WRONG.

[LuciBear]

Question is the universe still expanding and will it stop if so what will happen

[troyadams]

This was an awesome video, I never realized how easy it was to find North.

[Leown]

When water boils, why does there come so much oxygen (or air) from the bottom? I know there's air in the water, but what causes the big bubbles?

[mohammedamer]

Nice thing. But i didn't understand the analog wacth method

[olvi]

Never been lost enough to need to use this kind of techniques.
But if I really don't know where I am, does it matter if i walk to the North, South, East or West? I would think I need one of these techniques to keep me walking straight ahead so I won't return to my starting place after three days of walking.
Does anyone have any experience about this kind of situation?

[EngeKomkommer]

For a split second, I thought "That's easy, just look at the stone texture". Then I remembered real life doesn't have textures. :(