Chapter 4 Chapter Four About "Rice"

It is certain that a unit of measurement that is universal, eternal, and whose essence can provide precise measurement has always existed in the minds of human beings.Therefore, no matter what kind of mutation has occurred on the earth, this unit of measurement should be accurately discovered.I believe that the predecessors also thought so, but they lacked the methods and instruments to conduct such experiments with sufficient approximation. The best way to obtain an eternal unit of measurement is to transfer it to the oblate spheroid of the earth, because the circumference of the earth can be regarded as eternal and unchanging, and thus the full length or part of the circumference can be accurately measured.

The ancients tried to determine this unit of measurement.According to some of Aristotle's contemporaries, he regarded ancient Egypt as one-tenth of the length from the Earth's poles to the equator.People living in the ancient Greek era (first century BC) used a more approximate method to measure the length of the longitude between Seena and Alexandria along the Nile River.and Pudoreme also failed to give sufficient accuracy to the geodetic experiments they performed.Subsequent scientists failed to make breakthroughs. It was Picard who first started adjusting the method of measuring the length of longitude at 1 latitude in France. In 1669, he determined the distance between Paris and Amiens, considering the length of each degree of longitude to be 57060.

Picard's measurements were continued in 1683 by Dominique, by Cassini and by Laille in 1718 to Dunkirk and Gauliore, respectively. In 1739, François Cassini and Lacaille made another measurement between Dunkirk and Perpignan.Finally, the measurement of this meridian was extended by Méchan to Barcelona, ​​Spain.And yet Méchan died, of such an exhausting scientific operation.This measurement was not recovered in France until 1807 by Arago and Biot.The two scientists continued it to the Balearic Islands (Spain), and this arc of meridian then stretched from Dunkirk to Formente Island, cut in the middle by the 45° north latitude line, just between the pole and the equator, at In this case, the calculation of the 1/4 length of the longitude does not need to consider the flatness of the earth.This measurement gave an average length of 57,025 tuises per degree of meridian arc in France.

It can be seen that until then exclusively French scientists were engaged in this tricky determination.Likewise, in 1790, the Constituent Convention, at the suggestion of Talleyrand, decided that the Academy of Sciences would be tasked with conceiving an eternal system of weights and measures for all lengths and weights.At that time, the report signed by famous names such as Borda, Lagrange, Laplace, Monter, and Condorcet suggested that one hundred thousandth of the length of 1/4 warp should be used as a common length unit, and distilled water The weight of China is used as the standard to measure the weight of all objects, and the decimal system is used as the decimal system for weights and measures.

Later, experiments to measure the average arc length per degree of meridian were carried out in different places on the earth, because the earth is not an oblate spheroid, but an ellipsoid, and many experiments should give the flatness relative to the pole. In 1736, Moporti, Clairau, Camus, and Lemony, the Egyptian-Swede Selesess, measured the length of one-degree meridian arc in Lapland near the Arctic Circle to be 57419 Toises. In 1745, La Condamine, Bugor and Godin, with the help of the Spaniards Juan and Antonio Froa, determined the value in Peru to be 56737 tuises. In 1752, Lakai measured the value at the Cape of Good Hope as 57037 tuises.

In 1754, the Meyers and Boscove measured the length of the meridian arc between Rome and Rimini to be 56,973 tuises. In 1762 and 1763, the value measured by Boccaria in the Piedmont region of Italy was 57468 tuises. In 1768, astronomers Mason and Dixon determined that the length of each degree of meridian arc was 56888 tons in the border area of ​​Maryland and Pennsylvania in North America. Then, in the 19th century, numerous meridians were measured: in the Bay of Bengal, the East Indies, Piedmont, Finland, Kurland (in Latvia), Hanover, East Prussia, Denmark, and others.However, the British and Russians did not carry out this difficult measurement experiment as actively as other peoples. The most important one they did was carried out by Roy, Chief of the General Staff in 1784. Human measurements are linked.

From the above descriptions of many measurements, it can be concluded that the average length of each degree of meridian arc is about 57,100 tons, which is equivalent to 25 in France. Multiply this value by 360 to get the circumference of the earth's circle is 9,000 Guli . However, the various figures derived from the above, that is, the determinations obtained in different regions of the earth, do not agree absolutely, however, from the average value of 57000, the value of "meter" can be deduced, that is, one hundred thousand of the length of 1/4 longitude One tenth, or 0.513074, or 3 French feet, 11 and 296 thousandths.

In fact, this number is a bit too convincing.In the recent calculation, the oblateness of the earth is 1/299.15 instead of the previously accepted 1/344, and the obtained 1/4 meridian length is no longer 10 million meters, but 1 856 meters. The error of 856 meters is insignificant for such a long length.However, the "meter", as it is accepted, does not exactly reflect one hundred-thousandth of the length of a 1/4 meridian, with an error of about 1/50 of a French minute. However, the "rice" thus determined cannot be accepted by all civilized countries.The former Spanish colonies of Belgium, Spain, Piedmont, Greece, the Netherlands, the Equatorial Republic, the Republic of New Granada, and Costa Rica accepted almost immediately.Although the metric system has obvious advantages over other "systems", Britain has always refused to accept it.

Perhaps this system would have been accepted by the people of the United Kingdom were it not for the political strife that marked the end of the eighteenth century.When the Constitutional Convention issued its decree on May 8, 1790, scientists from the Royal Society were invited to join the French scientists.For the determination of "meter".Still to decide whether it should be based on the length of a simple pendulum moving regularly, or in terms of a portion of some great circle on the earth as the unit of length.Those events hindered the envisioned unity. It was not until 1854 that the British government had already felt the superiority of the metric system and saw some scientists and businessmen forming groups to promote the reform, so it decided to accept it.

However, the British government intends not to make this secret decision public until its own geodetic experiments have determined a more precise length for each degree of meridian arc.At the time, on this issue, the British government thought it could work in solidarity with the Russian government, which was also leaning towards the metric system. A scientific committee of three British scientists and three Russian scientists was thus formed among the most eminent members of the Association for Science and Technology of the two countries.We have seen that the British three were Colonel Everett, the Lord John Murray, and William Amory, and the Russians Mathieu Strux, Nicolas Barendre, and Michel Zorn Three gentlemen.

The scientific committee gathered in London and decided to first conduct a measurement experiment in the southern hemisphere, then immediately re-measure it in the northern hemisphere, and then combine the two experiments, hoping to deduce an accurate value that meets all the conditions in the plan. They have yet to choose a test site among the British territories in the southern hemisphere: the Cape Colony, Australia and New Zealand.New Zealand and Australia are on equal points in Europe, and the scientific committee has to travel a long distance to get there.And the Maori and Australians there are at war with their invaders for a long time, which may make the experiment very difficult.On the contrary, the Cape Colony has real advantages: 1.It is at the same longitude as some parts of the European part of Russia, and after measuring a certain length of the meridian in the southern hemisphere, it is possible to return to Tsarist Russia to secretly measure another length of the same meridian. 2.The journey to the British Southern Hemisphere territories is relatively short. 3.In the end, the British and Russian scientists saw this as an excellent opportunity to test the results of the French astronomer Lakai.They can conduct experiments in the same place to check whether the 57037 tuises he measured at the Cape of Good Hope are accurate. So it was decided to choose Cape Town for this geodetic experiment.The governments of the two countries agreed with the decision of the Anglo-Russian Committee and allocated large sums of money.All triangulation instruments were made in duplicate.Astronomer William Amory was brought in to oversee preparations for the expedition.The battleship HMS Augusta of the Royal Navy was ordered to take the members of the committee and their entourage to the mouth of the Orange River. To scientific issues, there should be added the issue of national pride that motivates these scientists to work together in a common mission.The problem, in fact, was to surpass France in numerical calculations, and to overthrow exactly what had been achieved by the more famous French scientists in a largely unknown and uncivilized region.Therefore, the members of the Anglo-Russian Committee were ready to sacrifice everything, even their lives, for a result which would be favorable to the progress of science and at the same time to the glory of the Fatherland. That is why, at the end of January 1854, the astronomer William Amory appeared at the foot of the Molkata Falls, by the Orange River.

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