Overview

How many kilometers is 1 nautical mile? When traveling at sea, we often hear about a unit of distance, the nautical mile. As a specific unit of navigation at sea, the concept of the nautical mile has greatly facilitated the transportation life of people and has provided a certain degree of convenience for people to explore the Earth.

So how exactly did the concept of the nautical mile unit emerge in human history? Why did people need to rely on nautical mile units for distance calculations at sea?

The history of inventions in the sea

With the continuous development of the maritime transportation industry, the concept of nautical miles was invented. For us, the nautical mile is an international unit of measure, and in our country, the distance represented by 1 nautical mile is 1852 meters. In the United States, 1 nautical mile represents 1,851 meters.

The reason for such small differences is that the nautical mile itself is an extremely old unit, and measurements of the nautical mile have deviated at different times.

The earliest historical distance of 1 nautical mile was 1851 meters, but in subsequent measurements, it was found that this data was actually wrong, but in some European and American countries, this wrong data was still preserved.

For human beings, the nautical mile is an extremely important unit, when sailing at sea, people also need to follow the nautical mile to predict the sailing distance, so in history, the concept of the nautical mile is actually how it came about?

In fact, when it comes to the sea mile, it is definitely considered a "senior" unit in the unit family. The nautical mile first appeared in the 16th century, and the emergence of the earliest concept of the nautical mile was inextricably linked to the "voyaging wave" that the world was experiencing at the time.

In the world at that time, in order to expand their national power, the Western countries gradually began to form their own fleet, and rely on these powerful fleet in the world to scavenge resources.

It was also during this period that human society entered the "Great Geographic Discovery" stage, where continent after continent was discovered in the process of seafaring expeditions, and the world gradually began to become a whole. With the continuous development of maritime trade, people also decided to invent a maritime operating unit to make their voyage smoother.

Before the invention of the nautical mile unit, mankind gradually realized that the Earth presented a shape that was actually spherical, so on the basis of that, latitude and longitude were invented to better determine geographical position. It was the emergence of latitude and longitude that paved the way for the invention of the nautical mile concept.

People divide the earth's longitude and latitude circles equally into 360 equal parts, and on this basis, people then began to stipulate that the length of one longitude arc is also one nautical mile. So far, the concept of nautical mile has appeared in people's sea navigation life. Through the nautical mile, people can also better deduce their geographical location and estimate the speed of the ship.

Why kilometers are "no match" for sea miles

For us, kilometers is considered one of the most well-known distance units. Whether in daily travel or in some professional fields, we mostly rely on kilometers for distance measurement. So why do people use nautical miles as a unit instead of kilometers in the ocean?

In fact, this is still inseparable from the long history of the sea, in human history, the kilometer than the sea actually appeared much later.

To talk about the origin of the kilometer, it is necessary to mention another unit "meter". In 1790, a scientist from France defined the length of 1 meter by dividing the meridian, and it was after this period that the unit "meter" was gradually used in France.

Another name for kilometer is also "kilometer", so after the unit "meter" appeared, the kilometer unit was also invented, and 1 kilometer is equal to 1000 meters.

As the metre became more widely used, the French Science Council passed legislation to make the kilometer the national unit of measurement. Since then, the kilometer has been widely used and has spread around the world, becoming the dominant unit of distance in the world today.

However, compared with the nautical mile, the seniority of the kilometer is still slightly younger, and since the nautical mile has been promoted and used at sea in history, people who generally navigate at sea are still more accustomed to using the nautical mile as a unit of distance.

It can be said that the reason why kilometers did not shake the position of the sea, is a first come, first served. People are more accustomed to using their usual distance units, so for voyagers at sea, the nautical mile is still the most convenient distance unit.

The future in the sea

With the continuous promotion of the use of kilometers, as the "new generation" of young people also more often use the kilometers usually used by the unit. For the concept of the sea mile, in fact, many young people do not quite understand. So on this basis, the future status of the sea mile will still receive a certain threat.

Perhaps in the future, in order to better adapt to the pace of the times, people will gradually let the nautical mile exit the stage of history, so that the kilometer becomes the new generation of marine measurement units. After all, in most people's concept, we still have a concept of the length of "meters", and in our daily lives, we can not do without the use of kilometers and meters.

But regardless of the future status of the nautical mile, we cannot deny the great contribution it has made to mankind throughout history, and it is because of the nautical mile that we have been able to better realize maritime navigation activities and make the various continents more closely connected.

Concluding remarks

In fact, whether it is nautical miles or kilometers, as long as the units can finally express the concept of distance, they have achieved the meaning of their existence. In the future, there may be more different unit concepts, and as the trend of the times continues to move forward, there will be more and more "old units" out of history, becoming a permanent memory in people's hearts.