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Aug. 26th, 2015 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethTrig is tricky and I have not retained a bit of it.
I could relearn it but I'd have to get the pencil and paper and calculator and actually study the thing properly.
I'm not keen on the idea.
I liked their examples though. It was all about the ordinance survey and the channel tunnel. They managed some spectacular degrees of accuracy.
They said that the old ordinance survey points, high flat places to measure from, are redundant now because usually there is using satellite networks of known locations.
Which is cool, but what about when you reach a new planet? Could you do the same thing with your spaceship going round and round taking lots of pictures? That seems likely but I don't know how long it would take or what your errors would be, plus it wouldn't work through a Stargate anyhow.
I have noticed that Starship Surveys in SF seem to involve a lot more striding about discovering things, and a lot less pissing about with theodolites.
The bit about the channel tunnel also said why it had to dig down and go across in a wiggly line, because on top of that is chalk, which leaks, which isn't what you want for a tunnel under the sea.
So now I'm thinking about digging shelters on alien planets, only you'd have to find the right kind of thing to tunnel through, since your nice radiation protection wouldn't be so much use if it had all fractures in it and leaked whenever it rained.
... if I could stay interested in things without linking them to alien planets then many things would be simpler...
So my reading today mostly made me make confuzzled faces and realise that twenty years since school is a long time. Not very interesting to write up on the internet.
I could relearn it but I'd have to get the pencil and paper and calculator and actually study the thing properly.
I'm not keen on the idea.
I liked their examples though. It was all about the ordinance survey and the channel tunnel. They managed some spectacular degrees of accuracy.
They said that the old ordinance survey points, high flat places to measure from, are redundant now because usually there is using satellite networks of known locations.
Which is cool, but what about when you reach a new planet? Could you do the same thing with your spaceship going round and round taking lots of pictures? That seems likely but I don't know how long it would take or what your errors would be, plus it wouldn't work through a Stargate anyhow.
I have noticed that Starship Surveys in SF seem to involve a lot more striding about discovering things, and a lot less pissing about with theodolites.
The bit about the channel tunnel also said why it had to dig down and go across in a wiggly line, because on top of that is chalk, which leaks, which isn't what you want for a tunnel under the sea.
So now I'm thinking about digging shelters on alien planets, only you'd have to find the right kind of thing to tunnel through, since your nice radiation protection wouldn't be so much use if it had all fractures in it and leaked whenever it rained.
... if I could stay interested in things without linking them to alien planets then many things would be simpler...
So my reading today mostly made me make confuzzled faces and realise that twenty years since school is a long time. Not very interesting to write up on the internet.