NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Units and area.
From: Chuck Taylor
Date: 2006 Jul 17, 21:08 -0500
--- Dan Allen wrote:
> The nautical mile is based on the distance from the
> equator to the pole. With today's measurements it
> turns out to be off by a very small amount...
It's an interesting coincidence that the length of
the meter is also based on the distance from the
equator to the pole. It was originally intended to
be one ten-millionth of the distance from the North
Pole to the Equator. It, too, is off by a very
small amount from what it was originally intended
to be.
There is an interesting account of the French
expedition (beginning in 1792) that set out to
accurately measure that distance: "The Measure of
All Things, the Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error
That Transformed the World", by Ken Adler, 2002, ISBN
0-7432-1676-8.
Chuck Taylor
48d N
122d W
__________________________________________________
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From: Chuck Taylor
Date: 2006 Jul 17, 21:08 -0500
--- Dan Allen wrote:
> The nautical mile is based on the distance from the
> equator to the pole. With today's measurements it
> turns out to be off by a very small amount...
It's an interesting coincidence that the length of
the meter is also based on the distance from the
equator to the pole. It was originally intended to
be one ten-millionth of the distance from the North
Pole to the Equator. It, too, is off by a very
small amount from what it was originally intended
to be.
There is an interesting account of the French
expedition (beginning in 1792) that set out to
accurately measure that distance: "The Measure of
All Things, the Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error
That Transformed the World", by Ken Adler, 2002, ISBN
0-7432-1676-8.
Chuck Taylor
48d N
122d W
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
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