Longitude and Latitude--does anyone understand this?

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

If your coordinates are....

0 degrees, 08 minutes, 0 seconds South, and 78 degrees, 10 minutes, and 49 seconds West.

Does that make sense? Is that how you would say coordinates if you were saying them out loud?

I'm editing a book where characters are jumping out of a plane (over Ecuador) and the pilot is giving them these coordinates to get to the Coca River in Ecuador. Does the pilot need to say "minus 0 degrees (etc.)" or "negative 0 degrees" in addition to the South and the West? Or do the South and the West designations take care of the minus sign that I'm getting from different longitude/latitude websites? And do you say minus or do you say negative or...what?

Thanks for any guidance!

[Kay H Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kay H]

Wacky,
I asked DH because he is usually good at this stuff. He surprised me by saying he had no idea. He usually has an opinion if not the right answer. My astronomer son will be here on Wed night and he may have thecorrect answer if no one else here has it. I'll check with him anyway defore he goes back to Va on Fri.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Latitude and Longitude are both expressed in degrees,minutes and seconds. The minus comes in when you are south of the equator or west of the prime meridian (+ is north latitude and east longitude). They can also be expressed as north or south latitude or east or west longitude. 0 latitude is not + or - as it is on the equator and the same goes for 0 longitude as it is on the Prime Meridian.
Hope that helps.

If your coordinates are....

0 degrees, 08 minutes, 0 seconds South, and 78 degrees, 10 minutes, and 49 seconds West.

Does that make sense? Is that how you would say coordinates if you were saying them out loud?

I'm editing a book where characters are jumping out of a plane (over Ecuador) and the pilot is giving them these coordinates to get to the Coca River in Ecuador. Does the pilot need to say "minus 0 degrees (etc.)" or "negative 0 degrees" in addition to the South and the West? Or do the South and the West designations take care of the minus sign that I'm getting from different longitude/latitude websites? And do you say minus or do you say negative or...what?

Thanks for any guidance!

[kennyw Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close kennyw]

If your coordinates are....

0 degrees, 08 minutes, 0 seconds South, and 78 degrees, 10 minutes, and 49 seconds West.

Does that make sense? Is that how you would say coordinates if you were saying them out loud?


Thanks for any guidance!

You say them just like you wrote them. The south means south of the equator and the west means west of the Greenwich Meridian (O degrees longitude).

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Okay, thanks! I really appreciate it.

[kbletzer Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close kbletzer]

LOL my 4th grader just flunked this exact test!

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Latitude and Longitude are both expressed in degrees,minutes and seconds. The minus comes in when you are south of the equator or west of the prime meridian (+ is north latitude and east longitude). They can also be expressed as north or south latitude or east or west longitude. 0 latitude is not + or - as it is on the equator and the same goes for 0 longitude as it is on the Prime Meridian.
Hope that helps.

Okay, I see that. Thanks! Now why are latitude and longitude sometimes expressed as degrees, minutes, and seconds, and sometimes just as two numbers like this?

Latitude: -0.54014 / Longitude: -76.641472

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

If they want to do it with just numbers and no minutes or seconds or north or south, that would describe a point that is .54014 degrees South of the Equator and 76.641472 degrees East of Greenwich England, the Prime Meridian. Numbers like this have come with the GPS and the digital age. They are not traditional like the description in the first post.

A circle has 360 degrees, a degree has 60 minutes, a minute has 60 seconds.
A minute of Latitude is equal to ONE Nautical Mile, A Nautical Mile is 2000 yards (while a Statute Mile is 1760 yards.) A minute of Longitude is approximately equal to ONE Nautical Mile at the Equator and equal to ZERO Nautical Miles at the North and South Poles (90degress Latitude.)

When I taught Celestial Navigation I would review this stuff that the students had learned the year before in Piloting and then on a quiz or test ask them what the approximate circumference of the Earth was.... only about 10% of the class could put 2+2 together and get 360x60=21600 Nautical Miles.

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

Okay, I see that. Thanks! Now why are latitude and longitude sometimes expressed as degrees, minutes, and seconds, and sometimes just as two numbers like this?

Latitude: -0.54014 / Longitude: -76.641472

if you punch these two numbers into Google Maps
-0.54014 , -76.641472
it will show you where it is and also tell you that its
-0° 32' 24.50", -76° 38' 29.30"

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

if you punch these two numbers into Google Maps
-0.54014 , -76.641472
it will show you where it is and also tell you that its
-0° 32' 24.50", -76° 38' 29.30"

Oh, ah. Thanks for the explanation. I am fairly clueless about all of this.

The "old-style" numbers in the first post are the ones the author actually gave, except they were in a different format. I researched online to get them to the way I gave them in the first post, but the numbers are the same.

Since they do send you to a place in Ecuador, I'm assuming she did check them and they do refer to the exact spot she wants.

I came up with the "new-style" numbers while I was trying to figure out how the system worked. They don't refer to exactly the same point as the "old-style" numbers, they're just a different point in Equador.

Thanks again!

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

The way you said the numbers in the first post is fine. Often, though, the hemisphere indication precedes the numbers, that is:

South: 0 degrees, 08 minutes, 0 seconds; West: 78 degrees, 10 minutes, and 49 seconds.

Indicating the hemispheres makes it easier for a reader to place the location mentally. Also if this is written text I would use a semicolon to break the coordinates into south and west portions, as I did above. That's much less confusing than having all of the commas.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

The way you said the numbers in the first post is fine. Often, though, the hemisphere indication precedes the numbers, that is:

South: 0 degrees, 08 minutes, 0 seconds; West: 78 degrees, 10 minutes, and 49 seconds.

Indicating the hemispheres makes it easier for a reader to place the location mentally. Also if this is written text I would use a semicolon to break the coordinates into south and west portions, as I did above. That's much less confusing than having all of the commas.

Thanks! Fortunately, no one in the real world will be using these coordinates to get anywhere. It's good that they seem to point to the real place that the author is talking about (because otherwise I would have to find the real coordinates), but they don't have to be presented in the clearest way for listeners.

Honestly, the jump the author has created does not sound survivable to me, but of course all the characters DO survive and the story continues in the jungles of Ecuador....

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

One more question. If you were saying these coordinates aloud, is this how you would say it?

"South, zero degrees, eight minutes, zero seconds; West, seventy-eight degrees, ten minutes, and forty-nine seconds."

I need to know if you would say "zero" or "oh," and if you would say "eight" or "zero eight" or "oh eight."

Thanks!

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

One more question. If you were saying these coordinates aloud, is this how you would say it?

"South, zero degrees, eight minutes, zero seconds; West, seventy-eight degrees, ten minutes, and forty-nine seconds."

Thanks!

That is exactly how I would say it.

Regarding "oh" vs. zero: Zero is either the number zero or the numeric character "0". It is not the same as "oh".

Unless I'm careless I always say "zero" when referring to a zero. If you do that you are totally unambiguous about what you mean.

There are a few circumstances in which I might possibly say "aught" instead of zero; those are rare and involve situations in which "aught" is typically used instead of "zero".

****

Every rule has it's exception, I guess. I just realized there is one other circumstance in which I might use "zero" in a non-numeric context. That is to refer to someone who is a complete and total loser; someone who is a "zero".

Referring to someone as an "oh" instead just doesn't have the same impact.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

That is exactly how I would say it.

Regarding "oh" vs. zero: Zero is either the number zero or the numeric character "0". It is not the same as "oh".

Unless I'm careless I always say "zero" when referring to a zero. If you do that you are totally unambiguous about what you mean.

There are a few circumstances in which I might possibly say "aught" instead of zero; those are rare and involve situations in which "aught" is typically used instead of "zero".

****

Every rule has it's exception, I guess. I just realized there is one other circumstance in which I might use "zero" in a non-numeric context. That is to refer to someone who is a complete and total loser; someone who is a "zero".
Referring to someone as an "oh" instead just doesn't have the same impact.

From someone who dealt with circuit, WATS and telephone numbers for 25 years, "0" is always said zero. To this day my phone number, when I'm asked for it is xxx-xxx-xzeroxzero but then, how many refer to this:# as an octothorpe?

and yes so is a loser. always a zero.