BEARINGS (What does N55°E mean? Or S30°W, etc??????)?

Question

I need to know this for an assignment, & I have no idea what it means. Anyone good with directions & know what it means if you say that the bearing of a place from where you're standing is N55°E?

Answer 1

I hope this gives you some "direction." ;-)

Bearing (navigation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In navigation, a bearing is the clockwise angle between a reference direction (or a datum line) and the direction to an object. Unless otherwise specified, the reference direction is generally understood to be magnetic North, in which case the term compass bearing is also used.

If navigating by gyrocompass, the reference direction is true north, in which case the terms true bearing and geodetic bearing are used. In stellar navigation, the reference direction is that of the North Star, Polaris.

Generalizing this to two angular dimensions, a bearing is the combination of antenna azimuth and elevation required to point (aim) an antenna in a given direction. The bearing for geostationary satellites is constant. The bearing for polar-orbiting satellites varies continuously.

Moving from A to B along a great circle can be considered as always going in the same direction (the direction of B), but not in the sense of keeping the same bearing, which applies when following a rhumb line. Accordingly, the direction at A of B, expressed as a bearing, is not in general the opposite of the direction at B of A (when traveling on the great circle formed by A and B). For example, assume A and B in the northern hemisphere have the same latitude, and at A the direction to B is eastnortheast. Then going from A to B, one arrives at B with the direction eastsoutheast, and conversely, the direction at B of A is westnorthwest.

Bearings are in these terms 0°= north, 45°=Northeast, 90°= East, 135°=southeast, 180°= South, 225°= Southwest, 270°= West, 315°= Northwest and 360°= North.

Answer 2

Those are latitudes ( north and south) It broken down by whole degrees, minutes and seconds. 0 degrees is the equator which is an imaginary line diving the earth into north and south. East and west longitiudes are likewise expressed in whole degrees minutes and seconds and it is an imaginary line diving the earth into east and west sections.
Longitude starts at the prime meridian.
It's used for finding a location. The Global Positioing System (GPS) does this electronically though satelites. To manually plot a location Find the latutude first (North or south), then plot the longitude (east or west) to find the position.

Bearings are expressed in whole degrees 000 to 359. 000 is north and 090 is east, 180 is south and 270 is west. Bearings acan be true as in true north, magnetic or relative to ones one heading. Avator type use an imaginy clock position relative to themselves to express bearing. I.E. Six O clock is directly behind you.

Answer 3

There are 360 degrees in direction on a compass. Due north is 0 degrees, due east is 90 degrees, south is 180 degrees and west is 270 degrees. Any other number is just another direction. 55 degrees is somewhere between north and east.

Answer 4

Your facing north, and you go 55 degrees to the east. I don't know how else to explain it, but if you make a even cross label the north, south, east and west, take a protractor and face north and measure 55 degrees to the east.
hope that helped

Answer 5

It's latitude and longitude I think, I can't help you with ware that is but I'm sure you can find a map on line that you can look it up on. If I remember correctly, I think there are latitudes and longitudes on a house hold globe.

Answer 6

Interesting topic!