What is a nautical mile?

What is a nautical mile, and how does it differ from a "normal" mile and a kilometer?

A nautical mile is based on the circumference of the planet Earth. If you were to cut the Earth in half at the equator, you could pick up one of the halves and look at the equator as a circle. You could divide that circle into 360 degrees. You could then divide a degree into 60 minutes. A minute of arc on the planet Earth is 1 nautical mile. This unit of measurement is used by all nations for air and sea travel.

A knot is a unit of measure for speed. If you are traveling at a speed of 1 nautical mile per hour, you are said to be traveling at a speed of 1 knot.

A kilometer is also defined using the planet Earth as a standard of distance. If you were to take the Earth and cut it in half along a line passing from the North Pole through Paris, and then measure the distance of the curve running from the North Pole to the equator on that circle, and then divide that distance by 10,000, you would have the traditional unit for the kilometer as defined in 1791 by the French Academy of Sciences.

A nautical mile is 1,852 meters, or 1.852 kilometers. In the English measurement system, a nautical mile is 1.1508 miles, or 6,076 feet.

To travel around the Earth at the equator, you would have to travel (360 * 60) 21,600 nautical miles, 24,857 miles or 40,003 kilometers


What is Military Time?

Time is told on a continuous 24 hour clock. Rather than distinguishing between morning (AM) and afternoon (PM), the time is read sequentially from 0001 to 2400.

For example, fifteen minutes past midnight is written as 0015 and spoken as "zero, zero, fifteen."

One thirty in the morning is written s 0130 and spoken as "zero, one, thirty."

Two o'clock in the afternoon is two hours after twelve and therefore is written as 1400 and spoken as "fourteen hundred."

Quarter to ten in the evening is written as 2145 and spoken as "twenty-one, forty-five."

After midnight, this time is spoken as "zero one hundred."

After noon, this is spoken as "thirteen hundred."

In the morning, the time is spoken as "zero five hundred."

In the afternoon, it is "seventeen hundred."

Before noon, this is "ten hundred."

At night, this is referred to as "twenty-two hundred."

Eh, what time is it please....

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