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Length of a meter...
From: Dale Lichtblau
Date: 2025 Jun 21, 12:06 -0700
From: Dale Lichtblau
Date: 2025 Jun 21, 12:06 -0700
The length of the meter calculated by Delanbre and Mechain is "roughly" 0.2 millimeters short. The attached figure was used in 1740 to derive this length by calculating the length of the meridian that runs through Paris from the North pole to the equator. They used the triangulation method and simple trigonometry. But how was the length of any segment on the figure calculated from the series of triangles (extrapolating from the physically measured base line)? How, for instance, was the distance between t and u derived?
See The Measure of All Things, Ken Alder, 2002.
Thanks.
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