3 ms·

For us young ones: How do sea navigators measure their ships speed? http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae400.cfm http://www.physlink.com/education/ask

• philwelch 15y ago
  That's interesting. I just assumed it was a sound-alike for "nautical miles per hour", spelled "knots" instead of "nauts" for some arbitrary reason.
• benholmen 15y ago
  Another interesting word is 'log' which we use daily in a digital sense but it has a very physical nautical origin: log: "from log (n.1) which is so called because a wooden float at the end of a line was cast out to measure a ship's speed. General sense by 1913." Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=log&allowed_in_frame=0 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=log&allowed_in_...