Scientists Think They Have Found the 'Sunstone' Vikings Used to Navigate | Hacker News Reader

Scientists Think They Have Found the 'Sunstone' Vikings Used to Navigate

businessinsider.com

52 pointstriplesec13 comments

How does the sunstone work?
If you put a dot on top of the crystal and look at it from below, two dots appear, because the light is "depolarised" and fractured along different axes.

You then rotate the crystal until the two points have exactly the same intensity or darkness.

I like stories about rediscovered ancient technologies but in this case, a youtube video, an image or even an animation of the device would have been helpful.

you can find a number of shaky-cam amateur examples on youtube of them. I'm quite surprised that there isn't some googlable drawing of the thing in a textbook-quality form - you know, like http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/astrophysics/... this - but instead for sunstones.

Thanks kristopolous, I will. Appreciated.

I know it is crappy looking, but I made one for you :D

http://i.imgur.com/gIryQlj.jpg

Pleasant surprise. Thank you for showing me how to navigate a professional career path too.

Not quite sure how I helped you with the latter but I am glad to help!

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5342104

Article dated almost a year ago.

if you think that's old, you should check out the rock.

Article seems like a rehash of older news - for example http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21693140

I had always heard that crystal called "Iceland spar" was the one.

Oritinal title too long: "Scientists Think They Have Found The Mythical ‘Sunstone’ Vikings Used To Navigate Warships"

This is a proper ancient use for crystals. I think our science camp might have to make some of these for this coming August.

What a strange headline. If it's been found, how can it be mythical? Even the article text itself only goes so far as to call it "near-mythical."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com