Sense of Direction

Among the things that fascinated me for long time and came to appreciate it more when I learn more about it is the skills of our ancestors hundreds of year before us which enabled them to navigate across the high seas and deserts. And of course their skills could not come about without their understanding of stars and their behavior. Today we take for granted the GPS satellite receivers in our hands and the modern navigation systems that are commercially available to us let alone the more sophisticated navigation systems that enabled the mankind to send spaceship to Mars and even beyond Mars in the case of voyager I & II. Launched in 1977, The Voyager spacecrafts are the most distant human-made objects in space traveled more than 15 billion kilometers away from earth in just about 30 years. With the vast difference in technology available then and now, our ancestor’s capabilities to navigate was no less superior than what today’s technology can do. I must though note that we have been spoiled by this technology. We have ended up shutting down our sense of directions to the extent that if we stop a person on the street chances are that he would not be able to point to us where the east or west direction. Our cars and watches are now being equipped with GPS and campus. I just hope that humanity will not loose its instinct of knowing direction for a simple reason, if pigeon can navigate through earth magnetic field so should we.

Good night