GYROCOMPASS

Gyrocompass

A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and rotation of the Earth to automatically find geographical direction. Although one important component of a gyrocompass is a gyroscope, these are not the same devices; a gyrocompass is built to use the effect of gyroscopic precession, which is a distinctive aspect of the general gyroscopic effect. Gyrocompasses are widely used for navigation on ships, because they have two significant advantages over magnetic compasses:

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gyrocompass

Noun

  1. A north-seeking form of gyroscope used as a directional reference in navigation.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: gyrocompass
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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