Portugal Pavillion for EXPO 92

Description

The astrolabe, the sextant and some knowledge of Astronomy helped the 16th century sailors, “blind”, to cross seas of unknown extensities, discovering places up to then “non existent”.

The Morningstar showed the North and allowed them, with the use of the aforementioned instruments, to measure the Altitude and from there to account for the Latitude. They knew approximately where they were.

With the discovery of the Earth’s magnetic field, needles and compasses started being used in navigation systems, correcting the errors in the readings of the astrolabes.

The Magnetic North, however, not always corresponded to the Real North. There was an irregular difference: the deviation. This compass error was the uncertainty that would later be rationalized mathematically and added to Knowledge. The charts started therefore to be (re)designed every ten years, because the “magnetic lines” slide over the “geodesic”.

Places moved among themselves (and from themselves), in time.

Error started to be a necessary notion in the navigation systems, so that the (relative) permanence of the place could be assured.