Digital compass - the heir to a magnetic compass

There are disputes in history that are obviously doomed to find the wrong answer in any case, because they are based on an unrecoverable error. One of these arose very recently, since mankind has acquired a global positioning system : who is more precise - a digital compass or a magnetic one? People asking such a question obviously did something wrong at school geography lessons ...

Here is the first clarification of the question: which pole do you want to get to?

The answer seems to suggest itself. Even the obvious ignoramuses from those geography workshops, when the Adrianov’s compass (now a rare thing, by the way) served as a device for orientation on the ground, willy-nilly learned that the blue end of the compass needle always points to the north. So, to the north pole. Accordingly, the red end is to the south.

It is logical, but incorrect. Such an answer would be appropriate, say, in the 18th century, when the sphericity of the Earth had already been proved, but none of the researchers had ever looked at its crown and “antipode” side. However, in its young years, the history of the compass did not know any poles at all. Simply, starting with the ancient Chinese, we noticed that a magnetized iron needle always points in the same direction, and used it in navigation on land and at sea. And when the compass in XIII century in transit through the Arabs came to Europe, the ship captains at first were wary of using the novelty - they were afraid that they would be accused of witchcraft. But when they understood what was happening, the era of great geographical discoveries began, for which the compass rightly entered the list of the greatest inventions of the human mind.

And in the 19th century, with an interval of 10 years, the British polar explorer John Ross and his nephew James reached the Earth’s north and south magnetic poles, respectively. And they immediately determined that they did not coincide with the geographic poles.

Later it turned out: not only that - they also drift on the earth's surface. Behind them is not that a digital compass, a magnetic one, does not hijack. The average speed of their movement is 10 kilometers per year. For about three and a half centuries, the north magnetic pole wandered through the territory of Canada, and in the second half of the last century, it suddenly rushed to Russia, to the Taimyr Peninsula, at a “terrible” speed (in 2009, 64 kilometers a year!) . So now the arrow of the magnetic compass, if you follow exactly along it, will lead you to the Arctic pack ice, to a point with coordinates 85 degrees 54 'minutes north latitude and 147 degrees east longitude.

Now that we have figured this out, we’ll figure out how the digital compass works, it’s also electronic. Clearly, no magnets are required. The receiver, using signals from GPS or GLONASS satellites, determines its location, superimposes data on the grid of the map and immediately shows the north direction on the screen, but in this case - already at the geographic pole.

All other functions of the electronic device are determined by its purpose. The most advanced ones help to plot and remember a dozen routes with hundreds of control points, measure the distance traveled and speed, count the steps taken, and at the same time the calories that were burned at the same time. Hand on heart, this is not even a compass, but a navigator.

And here it is important to clarify for the second time the question of which digital compass you have in mind. Since there are devices that use biaxial magnetic resistors to orient themselves around the world. In principle, they are the same classic compasses comparing the direction to the poles along the Earth ’s magnetic field. With all the ensuing.

But, dear lovers of electronic gadgets, what will you do if all this machinery fails or is left without energy? Would you please use the good old magnetic compass in this case?