"I can dive off the eastern coast of the United States and surface again in the Mediterranean within five hundred yards of where I expect to be," says Rock Hudson to Patrick McGoohan in Ice Station Zebra. We would take that for granted today, but how was it even imaginable in 1963 when Alistair Maclean wrote the book, and was the captain (or the author) exaggerating?
Our world is round (sort-of) and takes 24 hours (almost) to revolve. The roundness was obvious to sailors for centuries, but the size of the sphere (if, indeed, it was a sphere) was a matter of guesswork and its rotation was once a dangerous heresy. The tilt, wobble and lumpy shape were all puzzling, but eventually undeniable.
We shall meet: Leon Foucault, demonstrating the Earth’s rotation with pendulums and gyroscopes which stay fixed relative to the universe; Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, using the rotation to align his gyrocompass, and Elmer Sperry (allegedly) copying his ideas; leading to Charles Stark Draper and his rivals developing inertial navigation for ships, submarines, missiles, aircraft, spacecraft and cars, allowing us to travel confidently to the Moon and across its surface and (more daringly) beneath the North Polar icecap and through the Limehouse Link tunnel.
And as the Royal Navy tests Birmingham University’s quantum inertial navigation system on XV Patrick Blackett, ready for when GPS says “0 satellites available”, should we be saving our pennies or polishing our sextants?
Please note: lectures can be watched live online but we do not generally make recordings available after the event, for a number of reasons relating to time and copyright issues.
Date: Wednesday 7 February 2024
Time: 19:00
Place: CA House or, for the webinar broadcast via Zoom, your own home or boat
Booking (to attend at CA House): To book places on any lecture, and to indicate whether you’ll be ordering food, click on [Book venue]. Please pay in advance on the website, or by contactless on the door. Any problems with the booking system, call or email Mandie on 020 7537 2828/reception@theca.org.uk
Tickets (to attend at CA House): Members £4, non-members £7.
Booking (to join the webinar via Zoom): The webinar broadcast is open to members, including Crewing Service members, only. You will need to login to see the details below.If you would like to join the webinar broadcast, please register via Zoom here. There will be no charge for viewing online.
XV Patrick Blackett is an experimental vessel used by the Royal Navy to test systems including quantum inertial navigation. Unusually, she was built in the Netherlands, is not painted grey, and now flies a blue ensign.