I suspect they're talking about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britain%3F_Statistical_Self-Similarity_and_Fractional_Dimension
Definitely a famous paper, with deep philosophical/physical
implications (Not to mention spawning millions of cool screensaver
images...)
I see Adrian's point, but in actual fact I still say my statement was
well-posed. I was talking about a linear geometric representation of
the coastline. Obviously this is only an approximation to the "true"
coastline. The point was that the perimeter of the geometry has a
well-defined length on a given ellipsoid, and any projection based on
that ellipsoid will distort the length.
Stefan Steiniger wrote:
sorry for the question:
but what is the title of the paper and who are the authors? I didn't
found that info anywhere in the emails
stefan
2009/2/7 Adrian Custer wrote:
(Off topic)
This is a particularly unfortunate example since this very question
(for
England, not Canada) was the title of a landmark scientific paper
which
showed the question to be meaningless.
Even more off topic.. but it's interesting to see that over 40 years
after its publication, this paper is still regularly cited. It hasn't
yet undergone the final transition of a classic paper - to become so
much part of our worldview that we take it for granted and don't even
think to cite it.
Apologies to the OP for this little highjack :)
Michael
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