Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway
According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determi...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792.v1 2023-05-15T16:26:46+02:00 Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway Száz, Dénes Horváth, Gábor 2018 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792.v1 https://rs.figshare.com/articles/Supplementary_Materials_from_Success_of_sky-polarimetric_Viking_navigation_revealing_the_chance_Viking_sailors_could_reach_Greenland_from_Norway/5999792/1 unknown The Royal Society https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172187 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY Environmental Science Atmospheric Sciences FOS Earth and related environmental sciences 111303 Vision Science FOS Clinical medicine Text article-journal Journal contribution ScholarlyArticle 2018 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792.v1 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172187 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determine the success rate of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. Simulating 1000 voyages between Norway and Greenland with varying cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox, we revealed the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland under the varying weather conditions of a 3-week-long journey as a function of the navigation periodicity Δ t if they analysed sky polarization with calcite, cordierite or tourmaline sunstones. Examples of voyage routes are also presented. Our results show that the sky-polarimetric navigation is surprisingly successful on both days of the spring equinox and summer solstice even under cloudy conditions if the navigator determined the north direction periodically at least once in every 3 h, independently of the type of sunstone used for the analysis of sky polarization. This explains why the Vikings could rule the Atlantic Ocean for 300 years and could reach North America without a magnetic compass. Our findings suggest that it is not only the navigation periodicity in itself that is important for higher navigation success rates, but also the distribution of times when the navigation procedure carried out is as symmetrical as possible with respect to the time point of real noon. Text Greenland DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Greenland Norway |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
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unknown |
topic |
Environmental Science Atmospheric Sciences FOS Earth and related environmental sciences 111303 Vision Science FOS Clinical medicine |
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Environmental Science Atmospheric Sciences FOS Earth and related environmental sciences 111303 Vision Science FOS Clinical medicine Száz, Dénes Horváth, Gábor Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
topic_facet |
Environmental Science Atmospheric Sciences FOS Earth and related environmental sciences 111303 Vision Science FOS Clinical medicine |
description |
According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determine the success rate of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. Simulating 1000 voyages between Norway and Greenland with varying cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox, we revealed the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland under the varying weather conditions of a 3-week-long journey as a function of the navigation periodicity Δ t if they analysed sky polarization with calcite, cordierite or tourmaline sunstones. Examples of voyage routes are also presented. Our results show that the sky-polarimetric navigation is surprisingly successful on both days of the spring equinox and summer solstice even under cloudy conditions if the navigator determined the north direction periodically at least once in every 3 h, independently of the type of sunstone used for the analysis of sky polarization. This explains why the Vikings could rule the Atlantic Ocean for 300 years and could reach North America without a magnetic compass. Our findings suggest that it is not only the navigation periodicity in itself that is important for higher navigation success rates, but also the distribution of times when the navigation procedure carried out is as symmetrical as possible with respect to the time point of real noon. |
format |
Text |
author |
Száz, Dénes Horváth, Gábor |
author_facet |
Száz, Dénes Horváth, Gábor |
author_sort |
Száz, Dénes |
title |
Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
title_short |
Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
title_full |
Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
title_fullStr |
Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
title_full_unstemmed |
Supplementary Materials from Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway |
title_sort |
supplementary materials from success of sky-polarimetric viking navigation: revealing the chance viking sailors could reach greenland from norway |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792.v1 https://rs.figshare.com/articles/Supplementary_Materials_from_Success_of_sky-polarimetric_Viking_navigation_revealing_the_chance_Viking_sailors_could_reach_Greenland_from_Norway/5999792/1 |
geographic |
Greenland Norway |
geographic_facet |
Greenland Norway |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172187 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792 |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792.v1 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172187 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5999792 |
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