• Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.

Happy New Year!

Go to CruxDreams.com
Praefectus Praetorio said:
We are approaching the New Year that counts,

New Year at Observatorium Anglicanum Hoc Grenovici prope Londinum.

The Prime Meridian of the WorldView attachment 658748I have straddled that line!

The timekeeping centerView attachment 658749View attachment 658750

Am I being Britannic-Centric? So be it. We owe Charles II and the Royal Navy and John Flamsteed and John Harrison (Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by David Sobel)

For our modern timekeeping
Click to expand...
Great book. Sobel was a science writer for the New York Times, and has several other books--one on Galilleo's illegitimate daughter who spent her short adulthood as a herbalist in a convent. I think that France had a rival "prime meridian" for a time, which is mentioned in Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" (I don't usually read novels, but I bought it in French and actually got half way through--I think my skills have gone south since).
It's always interesting to read about where the modern world came from.
This is the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's Endeavour (have to use the English spelling) voyage to the Antipodes to observe the transit of Venus across the sun to provide data for Halley's method of calculating the distance between the earth and the sun. The Royal Mail stamps are very elegant (even though no one uses stamps much anymore). If humanity makes it out another 250 years, it would be interesting to see how ignorant we seem to our descendants (just as it would be interesting to go back in time and see what the Roman Empire was really like).
For now, I guess we just try to hang on in a New Year.
 
Frank Petrexa said:
This is the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's Endeavour (have to use the English spelling) voyage to the Antipodes to observe the transit of Venus across the sun to provide data for Halley's method of calculating the distance between the earth and the sun. The Royal Mail stamps are very elegant (even though no one uses stamps much anymore).
Click to expand...

Good heavens you're right! My first thought was "that can't be, I remember the 200th anniversary" :doh:
1770 - 1970 Cook's arrival in Australia.

I haven't heard anything about a 250th anniversary yet. I hope it isn't going to be a guilt fest!
 
phlebas said:
Good heavens you're right! My first thought was "that can't be, I remember the 200th anniversary" :doh:
1770 - 1970 Cook's arrival in Australia.

I haven't heard anything about a 250th anniversary yet. I hope it isn't going to be a guilt fest!
Click to expand...

I often wondered what Cook really thought: "We're going where? We're doing what? Rule Britainia?". He was a great leader, a brave man, and unlike a lot of people he actually made quite a difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom