Tom,
Perhaps one of the lists geodesists could give a more complete answer
but I believe the original French definition of the meter was the
subtended arc-length (along a great circle) of one ten-millionth of a
guadrant (a guadrant = 90 deg. or pi/2 radians). This survey, by the way
took seven years to complete! Nothing like a government contract...
Therefore, since arc-length = radius * theta (in radians) we have the
following expression:
10^7m / (pi/2) = r = 2*10^7m / pi
With a reduction in scale of one million (divide above by 10^6) we
have:
20/pi m
We now know however that the length of the quadrant is really 0.023%
larger than originally surveyed, I hope you have made allowances for the
corresponding error. Just kidding.
Best,
Luke
Tom wrote:
- snip -
> By the way, the radii of both Celeste and Terra is 20/pi meters. Do you know
> why? A nice tidbit here!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tom Semadeni
