Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29765673›Full record

ArticleRoyal Society open science2018

Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway.

Dénes Száz, Gábor Horváth

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Royal Society open science, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Dénes SzázEnvironmental Optics Laboratory, Department of Biological Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány sétány 1, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Gábor HorváthEnvironmental Optics Laboratory, Department of Biological Physics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány sétány 1, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

According to a famous hypothesis, Viking sailors could navigate along the latitude between Norway and Greenland by means of sky polarization in cloudy weather using a sun compass and sunstone crystals. Using data measured in earlier atmospheric optical and psychophysical experiments, here we determine the success rate of this sky-polarimetric Viking navigation. Simulating 1000 voyages between Norway and Greenland with varying cloudiness at summer solstice and spring equinox, we revealed the chance with which Viking sailors could reach Greenland under the varying weather conditions of a 3-week-long journey as a function of the navigation periodicity Δ

Indexed as

calcitecordieritesky polarizationsunstonetourmalineViking navigation

Identifiers

PMID29765673
PMCPMC5936938

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.