Navigation

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

Navigation is how ships or planes find their way from one place to another place. The word navigation came from the word "navgatih" from the language of Sanskrit.

[edit] Simple navigation

One type of navigation was made by the Polynesians and is called Polynesian Navigation. They used different things found all around us to find their way from place to place. For example:

• A long time ago (and still used by some people today) people would watch the stars. From this they could then decide which direction they needed to go.
• The weather was watched and they could figure out where they were.
• The time it took to get to a place. When traveling they knew it would take them, for example, two days to get from one place to another. This time would most likely stay the same. From this they could travel two days and know they were close to where they wanted to be.
• The animals they found helped too. When entering different places the people would find different types of animals that only lived in one place. From that they could tell either they were near or far from where they needed to be.

[edit] Modern Navigation

As time went by better methods of navigation were invented or discovered. Some of which are:

• A compass. It was discovered that the Earth had two poles (North and South) and that these poles had different magnetic charges (positive and negative). This was when the compass was invented. Resting a strip of magnetic iron on the point of pin it was found that the strip would spin until it matched the magnetic field of Earth. From this a direction could be taken and paths could then be followed.

• A term that is called Pilotage is when ships look out for special beacons or man made markers, which will tell them where they are or to watch out for certain obstacles such as reefs.

• GPS (Global Positioning System) is a small tool carried by most modern travelers. It uses a system of satellites to find out where the travellers are almost anywhere on Earth.

Navigation can also be used to talk about traffic. For example "The channel will be open to navigation when the bridge has be opened".

Words that mean the same thing as navigation are: Sailing, Seafaring, Pilotage, Piloting