I agree with Robert's comments on Adler's derogatory asides, though "duplicity" may have been deserved. One must be careful when judging ancestors by modern standards of practice. But in whole, I think that the article has done our cause well. I would add two comments as noted below in these comments I have sent off to some other folks.
"I thought that the author did a pretty good job, especially for a non-scientist. One area begs a few more sentences, namely, that the methods worked out by Legendre and Gauss are what allow us to replace an earlier standard prototype (i.e., "primary reference") with a new one while assuring ourselves that we have not changed (within the limits of our ability to measure it) the size of the unit being represented. And I would disagree with his last paragraph's comment on the time scale needed for us to metricate. Great Britain essentially completed the task in just a few years--most of it in two years. Likewise, Australia did it in short order. I think we're capable of that, too." I may send off a letter to the editors incorporating the above. Robert, I hope that you won't consider any comments I make in that letter, about the spurious comments, as being plagiarism. I attest that I came to similar conclusions independently. Jim On Thursday, 2002 August 29 2150, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 2002 Aug 29 > The Fall 2002 issue of American Heritage of Invention & Technology has an > article about the survey from Dunkirk to Barcelona to size the metre. The > article, by one Ken Adler, reports that Mechain made a mistake in finding > the latitude at the south end of his survey. He could not repeat the value > of a year before. He kept this secret. After the death of Mechain, > Delambre turned in only the results of the survey, not the details. > > Adler makes unneeded remarks. In large type the article says "The meter, > it turns out, is a mistake." Adler speaks of Mechain's "duplicity". The > "mistake" is about 2 parts in 10 000, not enough to call for bad words. .... -- James R. Frysinger Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist Senior Member, IEEE http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: Physics Lab Manager, Lecturer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University/College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 843.953.7644 (phone) 843.953.4824 (FAX) Home: 10 Captiva Row Charleston, SC 29407 843.225.0805
