Compasses for Dummies

Ordinary compass

Remember the television commercial with the tag line, "If it's on the internet, it must be true"? The one with the pretty blonde and the soi-disant French fashion model? Does "Bone jewer" ring a bell? Sure it does! So: ever wondered why the meme "if it's on the internet it must be true" is so powerful? Well, here at the Antisocial Network we have a theory: it's at least in part because of freelancers at content farms, folks who write utter bull about anything and everything whether they know anything about the topic at all. We like to expose them... and that's why today we're featuring one of those same freelancers already seen here twelve times. Today, the one and only Naima Manal explains (and we use that word loosely) "Why Do People Use the Compass?" for the good folks at eHow.com (now at Leaf Group's niche site Sciencing.com). Of course, she doesn't do it particularly well...

So why do people use the compass? Easy: to determine which direction is North. In olden days, before everyone had a digital map in a pocket or purse, combining a compass and a map was the most accurate way to locate yourself or to find your way from one place to another. Of course, twenty-five words or so isn't enough to collect your payday at eHow, so Naima Manal had to... expand a bit -- which is where, as usual, she started exposing her total lack of familiarity with the topic. For instance, this bit of padding:

"[A compass] is an instrument composed of a suspended magnetic pointer that is attracted to the polarity of the North Pole..." ...attracted to the "polarity" of the North Pole? Errrg: that's a pretty crappy definition, Naima, not to mention that the compass doesn't point to the North Pole (where Santa Claus lives and Superman has his Fortress of Solitude); it points at the north magnetic pole; a point somewhere in the Canadian Arctic hundreds of miles southeast of the geographic pole. That's something she doesn't seem to have noticed, duh... Manal's semiliterate padding continues as she says, "Through a slight left or right turn, a compass will accurately point to the North Pole and identify the angles of the other cardinal directions..." Jaysus, Naima, we have no idea Whiskey Tango Foxtrot that is supposed to mean! Especially since the "angles of the other cardinal directions" are, by definition, fixed and always in the same orientation (relative to magnetic north).  And then, of course, we find Manal explaining that

"The magnetic needle floats upon an axis, inside a compass apparatus, to easily align with the earth's magnetic pulls [sic]."

"Magnetic pulls"? Is that her version of "magnetic poles"? Ignoring the rest of her padding, we find Naima finally answering the "why" in the original question:

"Besides navigation, the compass is used in building and construction for marking landmarks and borders, and to measure horizontal lines and vertical lines for maps. The compass is a valuable tool used in the U.S. military, as well as in mining to assist in underground navigation."

All that is... interesting. Stupid, misguided, and in some part downright wrong, especially the bull about "measure horizontal lines and vertical lines for maps..." What on earth is that supposed to mean?
As usual, Manal has managed to publish a blinding mishmash of utter bullshit, misguided or simply bad science and childlike misconception while – as is usually the case – not actually answering the original question. Small wonder she is, for the thirteenth time, our Dumbass of the Day!

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