How does math guide our ships at sea? - George Christoph

Without math, would our seafaring ancestors ever have seen the world? Great mathematical thinkers and their revolutionary discoveries have an incredible story. Explore the beginnings of logarithms through the history of navigation, adventure and new worlds.

Lesson by George Christoph, animation by the Hobizals.

[Ayplus]

Mathematicians still blow my mind. I struggled to learn all the different types of Calculus, when 400 years ago someone 'invented' this stuff. Wow.

[sailorgeer]

Cross pollination between disciplines is an under appreciated but vital piece in understanding how knowledge and technology has been expanding at an exponential rate ever since the dark ages. “If I have seen further than others, it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”

[pij]

By far the best TEDEducation video to date. Please hire George Christoph and make some sort of agreement with The Hobizals, this was amazing.

[wasimtanekhan]

Astrolabe was the first device based on constellations and many celestial markers to give the exact latitude for which sailor sailing and then after getting to required lat. The sailor use to sail just in East or west direction to get the desired location.

[Moongazerr]

I really love TED-Ed.
TED-Ed is amazing!!
Thank you for making awesome stuffs :)

[PotatoFarmer]

If your first name is "John", you're destined for nautical innovation, apparently.

[jonathanarreola]

There is an error in the video, the sextant is used to measure the ship Latitude and not Longitude.

[crosbying]

Great video TedED, especially the ending!!! I am almost done with masters in law school, and I dont see any cross pollenation within my field that makes it into the education itself.

[انفاسالورد-ذي]

جميييل جدا شكرا لك على هذه الافادة
اللغة العربية فخرنا فضعاف الشخصيات هم اللذين لا يفتخرون بها

[kingmariop]

One of my favorite lessons so far. :]
I really liked the music playing in the background too. :D

[CarnageProductions]

When all seems to be against you, remember, a ship sometimes has to sail against the current, not with it. Don't spend your entire life building a ship, without ever tasting the salt of the ocean. If a ship is strong, the ocean's tides do not bother it.

[jorsan]

Before that they just guided following Portuguese and Spanish ships ;-)

[Ragask]

Hi Ted-ed! this video is fascinating!! Could you make a video on the origins of trigonometry please?

[IngviGautsson]

Eddy has just made the music available on his SoundCloud page, titled "Maritime Mathematics".

[mathematicsonline]

that's a variation of bach's cello suite No. 1 Prelude

[seanpatrick]

There is so much incorrect information in this video. The sextant was not the first instrument that could measure the angle of the sun above the horizon. Comparing the altitude of the sun in England is not how anyone determined their longitude...ever. Lunars were not measured to the horizon, they were measured to other celestial bodies...and the calculations didn't take hours. SMH

[bdpv]

Amazing wow just wow very nice presentation

As a lot of people have already said here in the comments; fantastic TedEd video.

[aenigmatrices]

What I remember about John Harrison is this snippet from Empire Total War:

... Clearly, improvements were needed in navigational tools and the British Longitude Act of 1714 offered the immense fortune of £10, 000 to anyone who could devise a method for successfully calculating that element of a position. English clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776) did eventually produce a chronometer that kept very accurate time, but spent more effort in trying to get the money out of a recalcitrant government committee!

[ocamlmail]

And no mention of Mercator who made it possible on a long-long distances via rhumb line.