Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the EarthOxford University Press, USA, 2006 - 289 pagini Weighing the World is a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the scientific events leading to modern map making, written by one of the world's master surveyors. Edwin Danson, using a similar approach to his earlier best seller, "Drawing the Line: How Mason and Dixon Surveyed the Most Important Border in America" (Wiley, 2000) takes us on a journey telling the story of this experiment that has not been written about in over two hundred years. National jealousies, commercial and political rivalry were the underlying causes for many of the eighteenth century's wars but war also provided the stimulus for much commercial effort and scientific innovation. Armies equipped with the latest weaponry marched about the countryside, led by generals with only the vaguest of maps at their disposal. At the start of the century there were no maps, anywhere in the world. While there were plenty of atlases and sketch maps of countries, regions and districts, with few exceptions they were imperfect renditions in nature. No one knew, with any certainty the shape of the earth or what lay beneath its surface. Was it hollow or was it solid? Were the Andes the highest mountain on the Earth or was it the peak of Tenerife? Was the Earth a perfect sphere or was it slightly squashed as Sir Isaac Newton prophesized? Just how did you accurately measure the planet? The answers to these and other questions about the nature of the Earth, answers we now take for granted, were complete mysteries. Danson presents the stories of the scientists and scholars that had to scale the Andes, cut through tropical forests and how they handled the hardships they faced in the attempt to revolutionize our understanding of the planet. |
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Cuprins
1 I Cannot Be Wrong | 3 |
2 The Titan King | 6 |
3 A Calm and Gentle Character | 17 |
4 The Galileo of France | 29 |
5 Extreme Science | 37 |
6 Robberies and Depredations | 47 |
7 A Magnificent Military Sketch | 59 |
8 Persons Well Versed | 68 |
16 The Best of the Position | 155 |
17 Distinguished Merit | 164 |
18 Late by a Whole Year | 176 |
19 Geodetic Experiments | 194 |
20 I Know It Will Answer | 203 |
21 Offering Violence to Nature | 212 |
22 A Meritorious Foreigner | 223 |
23 Men Worthy of Confidence | 232 |
9 Very Expert in His Business | 81 |
10 A Passage with My Horse | 90 |
11 Frankenstein and Other Experiments | 99 |
12 A Remarkable Hill | 106 |
13 Important Observations | 115 |
14 So Great a Noise | 129 |
15 The Attraction of Mountains | 141 |
24 Irregularities We Have Discovered | 242 |
Explanations and Definitions | 255 |
Notes | 265 |
277 | |
283 | |
Alte ediții - Afișează-le pe toate
Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the Earth Edwin Danson Nu există previzualizare disponibilă - 2009 |
Termeni și expresii frecvente
Académie accurate American angles army arrived astronomer royal attraction of mountains baseline began Bengal Board of Ordnance Borda Boscovich Britain British Caillé calculations Cape Cassini century chain of triangles Charles Hutton Charles Mason charts circle Clive clock coast company’s distance duke East India Company Edinburgh England equator expedition France French Greenwich Hassler Highlands hill Ibid instrument Isaac Dalby James Cook James Lind James Rennell Jeremiah Dixon Jesse Ramsden John Joseph Banks land Letter Lord mapmaking Maskelyne’s Mason and Dixon mathematician mathematics Maupertuis Méchain ment meridian arc miles military Mudge Nevil Maskelyne observations Ordnance Survey Paris Philosophical Picard poles quadrant Rennell’s Reuben Burrow rods Roy’s Royal Observatory Royal Society Samuel Johnson Schiehallion scientific scientists Scotland Scottish ship Society of London Society’s spheroid stars surveyor theodolite tion toises transit of Venus trigonometrical survey tronomer Wade William Mudge William Roy wrote zenith sector