Weighing the World: The Quest to Measure the EarthOxford University Press, 1 mai 2009 - 304 pagini At the start of the 18th century there were no maps, anywhere in the world. No one knew, with any certainty, the shape of the earth or what lay beneath its surface. Was it hollow or solid? Were the Andes the highest mountains on the Earth or was it the peak of Tenerife? Was the Earth a perfect sphere or slightly squashed as Sir Isaac Newton prophesized? In Weighing the World, master-surveyor and bestselling author Edwin Danson presents the stories of the scientists and scholars who cut their way through jungles, crossed the artic tundra, and braved the world's highest mountains to discover the truth about our Earth. Danson also recounts the extraordinary experiment, conducted on a desolate Scottish peak by Astromer Royal Neville Maskelyne, to understand the so-called "attraction of mountains," the curious capability mountians have to bend gravity, without which it would be impossible to accurately map Earth's surface. A spell-binding scientific adventure story, Weighing the World will intrigue anyone curious about the shape of our planet and how we have come to know it. |
Cuprins
3 | |
6 | |
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 |
Bibliography | 277 |
Index | 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 Cook’s density distance duke East India Company Edinburgh England equator expedition feet France French Greenwich Hassler Highlands hill Ibid instrument Isaac Dalby James Cook James Lind James Rennell Jesse Ramsden John Joseph Banks land London Lord mapmaking Maskelyne’s Mason and Dixon mathematician mathematics Maupertuis Méchain ment meridian arc miles military Mudge Nevil Maskelyne Newton’s 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’s spheroid stars surveyors theodolite tion toises transit of Venus trigonometrical survey tronomer Wade Wade’s William Mudge William Roy wrote zenith sector