Research Catalog
Full meridian of glory : perilous adventures in the competition to measure the Earth / Paul Murdin.
- Title
- Full meridian of glory : perilous adventures in the competition to measure the Earth / Paul Murdin.
- Author
- Murdin, Paul
- Publication
- New York ; London : Copernicus Books/Springer, c2009.
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1 Item
Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Book/Text | Request in advance | QB280.5 .M87 2009 | Off-site |
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Details
- Description
- xviii, 187 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.); 25 cm.
- Summary
- "Full Meridian of Glory is the first English language story of the scientists who created the Paris Meridian. They collaborated and worked together in alliances like scientists everywhere; they also split into warring factions. They transcended national and political disputes, as scientists do now, their eyes fixed on ideals of accuracy, truth and objectivity. Yet also when their work served national interests they were sometimes less than neutral, and if their work was questioned they sometimes blindly descended into petty politics." "This book tells the story of the adventures in France, in Spain, in Lapland, and in Ecuador of the scientists who worked through revolution, war, rebellion, piracy, fire, shipwreck, blockade, snow, tropical heat, kidnapping, murder, and turbulent love affairs to pursue a problem of map making. They turned that practical problem into a crucial scientific test of one of the most important intellectual problems of their time - Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Their work changed their own lives, affected the course of science and politics, and left its mark on the landscape, art and literature of history and in our own age."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject
- Observatoire de Paris > History
- Meridians (Geodesy) > France
- Geodesy > France > History
- Longitude > Paris
- Geodesy > History
- Physics
- Science > History
- Physical geography
- Astronomy
- Science (General)
- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Popular Science in Astronomy
- History of Science
- Geophysics/Geodesy
- Popular Science, general
- Genre/Form
- History
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-171) and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- Introduction -- Chronology -- The Incroyable Pique-nique and the Méridienne Verte -- The size of France -- Shape of the Earth -- The Meridian and the sun -- The revolution and the meter -- The Paris Meridian in the Napoleonic Wars -- Past its prime -- The Greenwich and Paris Meridians in the space age -- On the trail of The Da Vinci Code -- Walking the line: the Arago Memorial.
- ISBN
- 9780387755335 (hbk.)
- 0387755330 (hbk.)
- LCCN
- ^^2008939455
- OCLC
- 233934223
- SCSB-10260444
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library