A World Changing Invention.

 Author : KETAKI WARTY

Inhospitable as it can be, the sea has played an essential role in human history, and so did that indispensable navigation tool, the magnetic compass. The sea provided the cheapest way to move goods over great distances, generating wealth through trade. Navigating the oceans successfully also played a pivotal role for many countries in gaining political and military power. Along the way, the compass contributed to innovations in physics and electrical engineering.

Far from the sight of land, the sea is a seemingly endless, undifferentiated expanse. For most of history, getting lost at sea was a very real danger, often with disastrous consequences. Even when close to land, seafarers can become disoriented in bad weather. For ancient Greek and Roman sailors, weather conditions even limited visibility enough to shorten the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea. The Roman military writer Publius Flavius Vegetius wrote in the fourth century that travel from June to mid-September was safe, but that sailing any other time was risky. He called the period between mid-November and mid-Marchmare clausum, or the time when “the seas are closed.”

Seafarers adhered to these guidelines until the early 14th century, when the magnetic compass made its first appearance in the Mediterranean. No longer completely dependent on landmarks, the mariner could now find his position relative to Earth’s magnetic field. With the Mediterranean now “open” for most of the year, trade increased substantially, which contributed to the rise of the Italian city-states.

Though the behavior of lodestone, a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite, was observed by the ancient Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus and Socrates, the evidence is clear that the idea for using it in a compass first appeared in China. There are allusions in the manuscript Wu Ching Tsung Yao, written in 1040, to “an iron fish” suspended in water that pointed to the south. And the earliest reference to a magnetic direction-finding device for land navigation is recorded in a Song Dynasty book.

In conclusion, through this blog we know the compass dates back to so many years. Hence I feel compass is a world changing invention.