[This post is part one of a multiple part series about understanding and using GPS coordinates in offroad travel: Latitude, Longitude and coordinate display conventions.]
One of the most universally known, but nearly always the least understood, object is — the
circle.
All at the same time it is so elemental that the youngest of children can recognize it, turn around it and tell you that wheels, balls and clocks are all circles; but, so sophisticated that it nearly takes a PhD in mathematics to understand and use it.
It takes a bit more sophistication, but not much, to know that you can divide it into segments, either equal or not; and, that when the segments are uniform they "look right," like spokes of a wheel and numbers on a clock, when they aren't, they don't.
Ask any middle-school child to do a "one-eighty" and see if they understand or a skate-boarder if they can do a "three-sixty." There will not be a moments hesitation.
Very little after first grade do we learn that the big hand is half-way between one and two when it's "one thirty." But talk about "degrees" and you had better be referring to wearing a coat or eyes will roll and corneas will glaze over.
Why are there 360 degrees in a circle? …
."
