The Quest for the True Figure of the Earth

Ideas and Expeditions in Four Centuries of Geodesy

Michael Rand Hoare (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

288 Seiten

2024
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-138-27770-0 (ISBN)

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In the 1730s two expeditions set out from Paris on extraordinary journeys; the first was destined for the equatorial region of Peru, the second headed north towards the Arctic Circle. Although the eighteenth century witnessed numerous such adventures, these expeditions were different. Rather than seeking new lands to conquer or mineral wealth to exploit, their primary objectives were scientific: to determine the Earth's precise shape by measuring the variation of a degree of latitude at points separated as nearly as possible by a whole quadrant of the globe between Equator and North Pole. Although such information had consequences for navigation and cartography, the motivation was not simply utilitarian. Rather it was one theme among many in an intellectual revolution in which advances in mathematics paralleled philosophical strife, and reputations of the living and the dead stood to be elevated or destroyed. In particular the two expeditions hoped to prove the correctness of Isaac Newton's prediction that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, but flattened at the poles. In this study, the 'Figure of the Earth' controversy is for the first time comprehensively explored in all its several dimensions. It shows how a largely neglected episode of European science, that produced no spectacular process or artefact - beyond a relatively minor improvement in maps - nevertheless represents an almost unique combination of theoretical prediction and empirical method. It also details the suffering of the two teams of scientists in very different extremes of climate, whose sacrifices for the sake of knowledge rather than colonial gain, caught the imagination of the literary world of the time.

Dr Michael Rand Hoare is Emeritus Reader at the University of London, UK.

Contents: Author's preface; A dispute in the making; Prelude to an odyssey; Some technicalities; The Lapland expedition; The Peru expedition; Meanwhile in Paris; Death and deliverance; A grievous aftermath; Once more unto the Meridian; A modern postscript; Appendices; Select reading list; Index.

Erscheinungsdatum	24.12.2019
Reihe/Serie	Science, Technology and Culture, 1700-1945
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	530 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-138-27770-3 / 1138277703
ISBN-13	978-1-138-27770-0 / 9781138277700
Zustand	Neuware