[HN Gopher] Struve's Flat(ter) Earth (2023)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Struve's Flat(ter) Earth (2023)
        
       Author : PuddleOfSausage
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2024-04-29 13:53 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.datawrapper.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.datawrapper.de)
        
       | KineticLensman wrote:
       | Flat(ter) here referring to the Earth as an ellipsoid, not an
       | actual flat thing, in case people were wondering. Really enjoyed
       | reading this, hadn't even realised how complex the political and
       | technical practicalities of measuring the Earth were in the early
       | 19thC.
       | 
       | Also, a much easier read than Pynchon's Mason and Dixon [0]
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_%26_Dixon
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | The line now also has its own chonky non-fiction history:
         | 
         | https://www.harvard.com/book/mason-dixon/
        
       | zokier wrote:
       | > In its own day, the Arc crossed only one international border,
       | between Sweden-Norway and the Russian Empire.
       | 
       | Looking at the map, it's not really clear why they decided to
       | veer west to Swedish(-Norwegian) side of border instead of
       | sticking closer to the Tartu meridian and staying within
       | Russian(-Finnish) borders, terminating somewhere near current-day
       | Utsjoki. Does anyone know the rationale for the route?
        
         | surfingdino wrote:
         | Longer life expectancy?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-04-29 23:01 UTC)