This is a fantastic discovery! Displaying azimuth in my ascii-side-of-the-moon [0] sounds useful, but then I would need to explain the symbol. I am displaying altitude/elevation below horizon, but there doesn't appear to be standard symbol for it. I checked the tables linked from article and there doesn't seem to be a symbol for it.
Maybe this is the opportunity to invent and suggest a symbol for Altitude?
Elevation -- the angle above the horizon -- is usually what's paired with azimuth.
xvedejas 2 hours ago [-]
Shouldn't it be the same symbol but turned 90 degrees? Seems to mimic the sextant operation if so. I've always used some set of greek symbols (theta, phi, maybe psi) for these kinds of angles.
Lasang 2 hours ago [-]
One of the interesting things about Unicode is how many symbols exist that almost no one encounters in normal software.
Every once in a while you run into something like this and realize the standard is not just for text encoding but also a kind of archive of specialized notation from different fields.
It makes you wonder how many other symbols are sitting in the table that are still mostly unknown outside the niche communities that originally needed them.
SlinkyOnStairs 1 hours ago [-]
> how many symbols exist that almost no one encounters in normal software.
Unicode's entire point being to make "normal software" handle those symbols ;)
adolph 2 hours ago [-]
Given it’s a table, one would be able to iterate over each, “be wrong on the Internet” about the character and wait for said niche communities to swoop in to make a correction.
tantalor 4 hours ago [-]
> it can, of course, be turned sideways to measure an azimuth with respect to an arbitrary meridian
Ah, of course :)
bombcar 58 minutes ago [-]
Honestly the little example of how a sextant works was more interesting to me.
russellbeattie 56 minutes ago [-]
The photos of the symbol catalogs are incredidble. You really have to admire the precision printing they did in the early 1900s. All those glyphs were created by hand. I'm not exactly sure what sort of lithography process was used (I can't imagine they weren't casting them in lead), but there was definitely nothing digital about it. The results are amazing.
foxglacier 3 hours ago [-]
I was wondering how much information was being lost whenever a font designer re-created that without knowing what it's supposed to be. It turns out they all put the arrow through the corner of the right angle which adds confusion by making it look like 3D cartesian axes. One of them made the zig-zag a curve which would be completely wrong by the sextant reason. But I guess this is how symbols and language drift over time.
RobotToaster 3 hours ago [-]
Let's hope fonts will start correcting it to the original form
4 hours ago [-]
cookiengineer 4 hours ago [-]
I didn't know that this is a mystery?
A lot of old German sailor maps (e.g. from the Hamburg or Bremen maritime museum exhibitions) contain Azimutal angle descriptions. The globe on an azimutal map is projected from the North Star in the center.
This way you could more easily calculate the angles you would need to use the Sextant (which was focused on the brightest star, the North star). They also used circles (the tool) to calculate relative speeds, current drift etc with it.
I thought this was kind of common knowledge, as a lot of museums have that sorta thing for children in their exhibitions to try out.
SAI_Peregrinus 3 hours ago [-]
The typographic symbol was the element in question, not what "Azimuth" is.
poizan42 1 hours ago [-]
Okay, but what does any of that have to do with knowing that the glyph at U+237C originated as a symbol for azimuth?
Maybe this is the opportunity to invent and suggest a symbol for Altitude?
[0] https://aleyan.com/projects/ascii-side-of-the-moon
Every once in a while you run into something like this and realize the standard is not just for text encoding but also a kind of archive of specialized notation from different fields.
It makes you wonder how many other symbols are sitting in the table that are still mostly unknown outside the niche communities that originally needed them.
Unicode's entire point being to make "normal software" handle those symbols ;)
Ah, of course :)
A lot of old German sailor maps (e.g. from the Hamburg or Bremen maritime museum exhibitions) contain Azimutal angle descriptions. The globe on an azimutal map is projected from the North Star in the center.
This way you could more easily calculate the angles you would need to use the Sextant (which was focused on the brightest star, the North star). They also used circles (the tool) to calculate relative speeds, current drift etc with it.
I thought this was kind of common knowledge, as a lot of museums have that sorta thing for children in their exhibitions to try out.