Answer:
Explanation:
Interesting text. Reading it, I have learned where the measure knots, used for the speed of boats, come from!
Tying knots in the rope made the job of figuring out how far a ship had traveled easier because the knots were uniformly spaced along the rope, as it is said 1/16 of a mile. Then, when a specific time elapsed, the rope was pulled in and the number of knots on the rope were counted.
Then, the speed would be the number of knots divided by the time.
If the time was one hour, then the number of knots were directly the speed on an hour basis. If the time was, different, say 15 mimutes, you just need to multiply by 4 (thera are 4 times 15 minutes in an hour) to have the number of knots in an hour. Standardizing the time to an hour tells directamente the speed in number of knots.
Suppose that the sailor counted 200 knots, in an hour, the the speed was 200 knots which is equivalent to 200 × 1/16 miles per hour = 12.5 miles per hour.