Robert Norman - Work

Work

Robert Norman is noted for The Newe Attractive, a pamphlet published in 1581 describing the lodestone (magnet) and practical aspects of navigation. More importantly, it included Norman's discovery of magnetic dip, the incline at an angle from the horizon by a compass needle. This effect is caused by the Earth's magnetic field not running parallel to the planet's surface. Norman demonstrated magnetic dip by creating a compass needle that pivoted on a horizontal axis. The needle tilted at a steep angle relative to the horizon line.

Magnetic inclination and local variations were known before Robert Norman, but his pamphlet had a greater influence than the earlier work.

The crater Norman on the Moon is named in his honour.

Read more about this topic:  Robert Norman

Famous quotes containing the word work:

    Hemingway is great in that alone of living writers he has saturated his work with the memory of physical pleasure, with sunshine and salt water, with food, wine and making love and the remorse which is the shadow of that sun.
    Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)

    Let us work without theorizing, ‘tis the only way to make life endurable.
    Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)

    In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)