NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Point Venus, August 1773
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2007 May 2, 23:49 -0400
From: Alexandre Eremenko
Date: 2007 May 2, 23:49 -0400
Fred > The book, "The Measure of All Things," by > Ken Alder, We don't have it at Purdue. What is it about? The French expeditions measuring the length of the meridian? I read another book about measuring the Paris meridian by Delambre and Mechain to establish a "scientific standard of the meter". Mechain indeed once had unexplained error of the order of 2" or so, and he could not repeat the measurement after the error was discovered (because of a war). He tried to hide the error, and this essentially ruined his life and career... > The discrepancies had led, essentially, to the death of > one of the fellows performing the measurements. Who was that? Alex. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
