Best online compass to find north, west ,east ,south
Long before the invention
of GPS satellites and other advanced positioning technologies, the compass was
considered a simple and accurate solution for orientation in difficult geographical
situations. Even today, this tool, which may be considered quite basic by many
people, can save people from crisis in situations where there is no access to
any kind of technology.
Despite its very accurate
and effective performance, the compass has a very simple structure. A online compass to find north , unlike a gyroscope, consists of a small,
lightweight magnet balanced on a frictionless axial surface. This magnet is
usually called a needle and one end is marked with the letter N meaning north
or painted with a different color. This is all that can be seen in the
appearance of a compass.
Earth's magnetic field
But the function of the
compass relies on a more interesting phenomenon. If you imagine the earth as a
container inside which a giant bar magnet is hidden, in order for the north end
of the compass needle to show the north direction, you should imagine that the
south pole of the magnet buried in the earth is facing north. In this way, by
using the law of attraction of opposite poles of the magnet, the function of
the compass can be justified, in other words, the north end of the compass
needle is attracted to the south end of the magnet hidden in the ground, and in
this way the tool can display the north pole.
To add more details, it
is better to know that the bar magnet inside the earth is not exactly on the
earth's rotation axis and is slightly off center. This deviation is called
inclination and most detailed maps of different regions show this tendency to
deviate from the center.
The Earth's magnetic
field is not very strong on the surface, because the Earth has a diameter of
12,784 km, so the Earth's magnetic field has to travel a long distance to
affect the performance of a compass on the surface. This is why the compass
needle must be very light weight and mounted on a frictionless surface,
otherwise the Earth's magnetic field will not be able to move it.
The example of a bar
magnet is only used to explain the simple operation of a compass, but the main
thing that moves the compass needle is not this imaginary magnet. It is not yet
known exactly what happens inside the earth when the compass needle moves on
the earth, but there are theories in this field that may be able to explain
this event better.
Earth's core contains a
large amount of molten iron, but deep in this core, the pressure is so high
that this molten iron turns into a frozen crystal. The transfer of heat caused
by nuclear radiation along with the rotation of the earth leads to the movement
of molten iron in a rotational path. It is said that these rotational forces in
molten iron create weak magnetic forces around the axes of rotation.
Hence, it is said that
because the Earth's magnetic field is weak at the surface of the planet, the
compass is nothing more than a very weak magnetic field detector that anything
can generate, and hence it can be made into a small magnetic field tracking
device. Also used by coils.
Gyroscopic compass
Using magnetic compasses
in moving spaces such as ships and airplanes can be troublesome, because this
tool must be used on a completely flat surface, and creating the smallest angle
on the surface will cause the compass to adjust itself to the new angle and
display new information that It may be incorrect. Therefore, most ships and
airplanes are equipped with gyroscopic compasses.
Gyroscope or direction
indicator can accurately display the angle and direction despite the movement,
this is done by the motor that is placed inside the gyroscope compass and keeps
the gyroscope active, in this way you move this tool in any direction. Its hand
will always show north with high accuracy and it can adapt to the direction of
north according to existing movements.
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