Bomford’s Geodesy 1952 edition reproduction available
Anyone interested in the “old-ish” ways may benefit from reading the 1952 edition of Brigadier Bomford’s classic text “Geodesy.”
The reproduction from Andesite Press is available in paperback for $16.91, on Kindle for $9.95 and hardback for $29.95. I bought the paperback recently. I found it to be a very good reproduction with only a few stray marks. Graphics, diagrams and the like are quite legible.
While later editions exist, this is an excellent text on classical methods. BTW, a copy of the fourth edition (in acceptable condition) is on sale at Amazon for $98.42 .
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I have the third edition of Bomford. I recently was looking for my copy of Physical Geodesy by Heiskanen & Moritz (green paperback), which was the textbook for my Geodesy II graduate level course at Purdue, and it is missing! Not sure how it could be gone, I have almost every book I ever bought (I am a book hoarder). I found a newer edition on Amazon, waiting for delivery sometime in April. The book for Geodesy I class was Geodesy by Torge, which is much more readable.
GeeOddMike I have one question; since this is a Geodesy book why did you post it under surveying and not
under GNSS & Geodesy?
One word of caution on using the 1st edition; convention of using Greek letters for some values were not standard when this edition was published. By the time the 2nd edition came out this had changed.
(I have all 4 editions)
JOHN NOLTON
@john-nolton they didn??t have GNSS in 1952
Hosmer is a good text describing basic methods. You can find his stuff dirt cheap on fleabay..
@dave-karoly One of the main category to post under is GNSS & Geodesy. Since this is a book on Geodesy I would have put it under this category ( GNSS and Geodesy). My question is to GeeOddMike on why he posted under surveying; He must of had a good reason.
As the green cover paperback has a black spline, maybe you need to search harder. I do not like the second edition as much. The second has the advantage of cleaner text and some content not in the earlier/classic edition.
I did not agonize over the choice. I recently came across the reproduction version, thought it would interest others, and posted in surveying due to the popularity of the topic ??old school surveying.? Unlike some other geodesy texts, Bomford includes a lot of information relevant to surveyors and topics like geodetic astronomy no longer in vogue.
When I retired and relocated, I donated my library. I have since found myself replacing some of of my favorites and buying newer texts; some in digital form.
I check the ??Recent Posts? rather than going straight to GNSS/Geodesy. As I added the keyword geodesy to the post, it could be found in future searches of the topic.
@geeoddmike You are right. After I posted that, I looked again, and I had indeed overlooked it because of that plain black spline.
Like I said, I rarely ever lose a book. So now I will have two editions of that book, the new one has shipped. My estate can figure out what to do with all of these, hopefully they can find a library to donate to.
I remember back in the Geodesy II (Physical Geodesy) class we had to compute deflections at scattered points using a see-through template overlaid on a map. Didn’t make a lot of sense back then but it sure does now with my greater understanding of geoid modeling.
I am about 1/2 through Irene Fischer’s book, really fascinating how they were able to compute geoids and deflections (and earth parameters as well as distance to the moon, etc) mostly by manual methods.
If you are still interested in geoid modeling a recent book (2017) by Sjoberg and Bagherbandi might be of interest. It is by no means an easy read. From the preface: ???? a main goal is to provide the reader with a theory (the KTH method) for determining ??the 1-cm geoid? (including both geoid and quasi geoid methods)???
The middle image is the front page of a work by Arne Bjerhammer whose prescience is now being realized by advances in. Technology.
https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/RelativisticGeodesy_TR_NOS118_NGS36.pdf
@geeoddmike Since you mention the reason for posting under surveying (of which I figured the reason was to reach surveyors) then you must have read my complete post about being cautious using Bomford 1st edition. Of which it just so happens that in the astronomy section different Greek letters are use than they use NOW. I would suggest readers use the 2nd, 3rd or 4th editions of Bomford work but keep the 1st edition if they have it.
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