Question

What is the significance of a compass?​

Answer 1

Answer:

A compass is an instrument used for navigation and orientation that shows direction relative to the geographic cardinal directions (or points). Usually, a diagram called a compass rose shows the directions north, south, east, and west on the compass face as abbreviated initials

Explanation:

Answer 2

Compass, in navigation or surveying, the primary device for direction-finding on the surface of the Earth. Compasses may operate on magnetic or gyroscopic principles or by determining the direction of the Sun or a star.

The oldest and most familiar type of compass is the magnetic compass, which is used in different forms in aircraft, ships, and land vehicles and by surveyors. Sometime in the 12th century, mariners in China and Europe made the discovery, apparently independently, that a piece of lodestone, a naturally occurring magnetic ore, when floated on a stick in water, tends to align itself so as to point in the direction of the polestar. This discovery was presumably quickly followed by a second, that an iron or steel needle touched by a lodestone
for long enough also tends to align itself in a north-south direction. From the knowledge of which way is north, of course, any other direction can be found.