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Re: accuracy of Cook's lunars
From: John Huth
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 17:17 -0500
From: John Huth
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 17:17 -0500
In addition - the student relates:
Just a bit of clarification: the huge outliers were caused by typographical errors. They exist in the 1773 first edition, but not in the 1893 transcription. My guess is that the rush of publication (and late 18th century limitations in printing) produced the typographical errors. They are usually just one number off. For example, in the 1773 edition, Putauaki (Mt. Edgecumbe, New Zealand) recorded a longitude reading of 193' 7" (west of meridian at Greenwich), which gave an error of nearly 10 degrees. However in the 1893 transcription we see that this is a typo: Cook recorded 183' 7" in his journal, not 193' 7", which produced a more reasonable error of 0.19 degrees.
So for the final draft of the video, I didn't end up taking out the outliers, but rather fixed them against the more accurate 1893 transcription
So for the final draft of the video, I didn't end up taking out the outliers, but rather fixed them against the more accurate 1893 transcription
