Celestial Navigation Reintroduced at U.S. Naval Academy

News from 2025: "After a decade of the Common Core instruction, schools around the country have re-introduced traditional mathematics into the grade school curriculum."

The fundamentals of learning are crucial. It is an easy mistake to think they are no longer important.

In regards to ( Common Core Instruction ), trying to teach several methods to do one thing may be fine for students qualified to be in (advanced placement ) types of classes, but other students have enough trouble learning just one way to do something.

The majority of students will probably just become more frustrated and depressed about (school), and then tend to ''tune out'' to such classes specifically, and other classes, in general...

But then, maybe that's the real PLAN...?

THAT'S what 'Common Core' is implemented as? Overwhelming young minds with 'Too Many options' when what they really need is the simplest way to do the task, might not be the BEST way compared to the others, but it gives them an easy-to-learn foundation or framework to build on. Teach them multiplication by tables, and let them completely internalize that BEFORE hitting them with multiplication by adding the logs of the numbers, then taking the anti-log of the result. Common Core should be the BASICS, and then after they've mastered the BASICS, then they can move on to the 'multiple ways of doing things' and find the other ways that work in situations that stymy the simpler methods.

It took me a lot longer then 3 hours to learn to navigate by the sun, moon and stars. I don't believe it can be done, but good on them for trying.

I agree with you. I'm going to guess that it's a 3 credit-hour course and not simply a matter of three hours. I'll check and provide an update, if possible.

I had a professor in graduate school, Henry Eyring, who could teach the basics of differential and integral calculus within 30 minutes if everyone in the classroom would keep their pie-hole shut and listen with both ears. An amazingly brilliant man, he was.

I had a professor for calculus and diff-eq, an Air Force Major. He was the first math professor ever to be fired from the Naval Academy. He could mathematically model stock market curves, but couldn't relate to fellow human beings. I had that guy 2 semesters. Many failed out because of him.

That is too bad. Failing students is a clear sign of a failed teacher, and he probably forgot why he was hired in the first place.

I presume that the three hours also includes training in the mathematics required to convert the angle of the sun into a position on a chart. (Do the US Navy still have paper charts?) After only three hours I would expect that a practical test in the use of a sextant and the maths to fix their position would yield a results ranging between the mid Atlantic and slightly south of the center of the Gobi desert. (An electromagnetic pulse would kill their digital watches so longitude is screwed as well) My local Sea Scout group are given 8 hours on the sextant as part of a 40 hour course to get their navigation badge. It is frightening to know that in the event of GPS satellites being targeted in a future war my local Sea Scouts might be more able to find their way about than the US Navy.

Just checked with the public affairs folks at the Naval Academy, and they say the instruction is a three-hour portion of a semester-long course. So three hours of instruction and not three credit hours.

Well.....this is interesting. I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1984. Celestial navigation was a 2 hour credit course, and was 2 semesters. Seamanship instruction was a core competency for the first 2 years, with various courses those 4 semesters. Plus many hours of actual navigation on training patrol craft in the Chesapeak Bay. Now I hear that they are "bringing it back". It should never have been stopped, or compromised in any way! In a war, a major war, electronic navigation is one of the first things to go....a strategic target that any good enemy will knock out in order to level the battle field. If not the satellites, then the actual electronic systems could be knocked out at any time! (Oh....I keep forgetting that the officers and crew will have their smart phones, Magellan GPS devices....right? And smart munitions, like cruise missiles and armed drones will still magically work, too.....right?) Reliance on GPS for navigation is a major "chink" in the armor of the U. S. Navy.

Didn't realize our military had been dumbed down to this degree.....I resigned my commission back in 1994......

Then, let's hope we only have to fight wars against ''bad'' (i.e.: low-tech) enemies...

I'm sure they'll gladly oblige us 'cuz they'll surely all be the most agreeable sorts of people...

(he said, sarcastically...)

Navigation was always a pain im the somewhere , Imagine finding your longitude without a reliable clock.

The surveyors had a 8 slide screw slide rule to do the calculations .

In 1978 I had a crude GIS running but fortunately had a HP9845 to do the calculations with.

I don't know if my iteration method of calculate coordinates from xy was the best way but I could not figure out the maths to reverse the n term formula.

Interesting info is that a surveyor came in the 1700s to do a job and while he was waiting for his return ship he quickly set out a surveying base line. He started next to Table mountain and did not realize that the plumb line was hanging skew and his direction was wrong . He calculated that the earth was pear shaped . The error was only realized in rhe 1800s .

"When possible, make a U-Turn..."