Encyclopedia > Rhumb lines

  Article Content

Rhumb line

Redirected from Rhumb lines

A rhumb line is a path of constant bearing on a spherical (or elliptical) object. If you follow a given (magnetic-deviation compensated) compass-bearing on Earth, you will be following a rhumb line, which spirals from one pole to the other, never actually reaching the poles (nor is it defined at the poles).

Contrast with great circle.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

... Western Europe. In 1535 Charles won an important victory at Tunis, but in 1536 Francis I of Spain allied himself with Suleiman against Charles. While Francis was persuaded ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 48.2 ms