Inventions
Gyrocompass
Marine Engineering
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A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth that finds true geographic north automatically, rather than the magnetic north a conventional compass points toward, and it is unaffected by the ferromagnetic steel of a ship's hull. The German inventor Hermann Anschutz-Kaempfe built the first workable gyrocompass in 1906, and the American engineer Elmer Sperry patented his own competing design in 1908; the German Imperial Navy adopted the instrument in 1908 and the United States Navy followed in 1911. The gyrocompass became a standard navigation instrument on ships and later aircraft, valued for pointing to true rather than magnetic north.
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Elmer Sperry, Engineers Why this is disputed. Patented a competing gyrocompass design in 1908, two years after Hermann Anschutz-Kaempfe built the first workable gyrocompass in 1906.
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