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Re: Looking for a book title
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2003 Sep 24, 13:26 -0700
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2003 Sep 24, 13:26 -0700
On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 11:22 AM, Vic Fraenckel wrote: > I saw a book for sale in our local Barnes and Noble that I should have > bought. Now I cannot remember the title. Perhaps someone on this list > could > help. The book was a NEW title concerning the French expeditions that > were > sent out back in the 18th century to measure the latitude arc lengths > in the > artic and tropics to support the definition of the meter. It was quite an interesting book. A: Alder, Ken T: The Measure of All Things P: Simon & Schuster E: 2002 It is the story of Pierre-Fran?ois-Andr? M?chain (1744-1804), Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre (1749-1822), the French revolution, and the measuring of the meter as one 10,000th of the distance from the equator to the poles. The hardback sells for $27. I got my copy from Amazon.com for $8.99. Apparently the book was not a best seller. Dan
