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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: accuracy of Cook's lunars (attn: John H)
From: John Huth
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 07:53 -0500
From: John Huth
Date: 2012 Dec 31, 07:53 -0500
Alex -
Sorry for not replying sooner. I've been in and out of internet contact over the last couple of weeks, so it's been difficult to keep track of all my e-mail.
Yes, the student really did investigate Cook's observations. I believe she used his published accounts - took the reports of the lunars, and then did some sifting to find definitive locations that she could identify on Google Earth (or maps). When she couldn't get a definitive match for a known modern location, she discarded the point, but took the remainder, put them in a spreadsheet along with the modern longitudes and did the comparison.
I did a similar exercise a few years ago in looking at the accuracy of latitudes and longitudes reported in a medieval table - throw out points where I couldn't get a definitive match, and then did a statistical comparison with the matching locations (e.g. Toledo, Constantinople, Baghdad etc.).
I don't have the spreadsheet in my hands, but I can try to contact her to retrieve it, and see if I can get her permission to share it around. She turned this in while I was on vacation in Jamaica, so I haven't had a lot of chance to scrutinize it further.
Best,
John H.
On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 8:45 PM, Alexandre Eremenko <eremenko@math.purdue.edu> wrote:
Dear John,
You did not reply my message on this subject.Did the student really investigate Cook's observations
(computer screen shots in the movie indicate this)?
If not, what is the statement on the 1 degree error based on?If yes, how can I see the details?
Alex.
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