Hello,
I am an instructor at Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis Minnesota. We were researching Eratosthenes's work on approximating the size of the earth, and the students would like to re-create the experiment. So if anyone on approximately the same Meridian(thinking east Texas or West Louisiana/Arkansas would be willing to help us that'd be great!
We would like to do this in the next hour if possible.
The process would be setting a 25 foot range pole plumb and measuring the distance from the base of the plumb range pole to the tip of the shadow.
Spread the word!!! I know this is a long shot, but what a great opportunity if this works out.
Kelly
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
We are have 6 - 4 foot range pole sections that we could use. It would be great if this works out... At this point I'd take anyone in south central US.
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
> .. At this point I'd take anyone in south central US.
Ok, I'll bite here under the premise that this is serious. I would think that one of those braniac students would accept the challenge of figuring this out. I did when I was trying to be a learned guy. Just give them an A.
S Central US is a big zip code though. I'd call Nate or Roadie or a host of many. Not that most any of us would not love a cool project, but my TSC2 has an offset program where you just shoot the shadow. Works in AZ, but not sure about the snow belt.
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
We're serious. At this point we are looking for someone in East Texas or West Arkansas/Louisiana. If you look at the location of Alexandria and Syene, they are not on a perfect meridian...
Hopefully a 25 foot level rod, or 6 - 4 foot range poles.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Aswan,+Egypt/Alexandria,+Alexandria+Governorate,+Egypt/ @27.563766,26.6225887,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x14367b5ab1a30e5f:0xfb109fe337cabccb!2m2!1d32.8998293!2d24.088938!1m5!1m1!1s0x14f5c49126710fd3:0xb4e0cda629ee6bb9!2m2!1d29.9187387!2d31.2000924
If we get within a few thousand(5?) miles i'd be pretty impressed. We'd share the calculations, of course.
The next hour would be ideal.
I was wonderin what to do with my old range poles... I can help out but I am only in the Kansas City area... you say 24 feet of range pole plumbed and then measure the shadow at what time here in the central zone?
Guess I won't be able to help out... can't see t he end of the faint shadow because of the high overcast.. good luck
We'll take it! If anyone else want's to join in and report back, let's take the readings at 11:45am Central time(12 minutes from now)
Thanks!!!
The process is correct. 24 foot of plumb rod and the perpendicular distance from the rod base(center) to the tip of the shadow.
Thanks for helping us out. We will report back with the result.
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
Is there a possibility of using 2 or 3 utility poles instead of trying to plumb up a range pole. Pretty easy to get the height and they don't really move much. You have some redundancy as well as being able to go back for the next class. Seems kind of fun for us nerdy measurer guys.
Heck, how about a bridge or other fixed objects. NGS has all kinds of triangulation towers all over, and they seem to know where the bear does his thing.
I'd go with the utility pole though.
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
That's great, but we need someone in the southern US to do the same thing. We're headed out not. T-5 minutes!
See above.. Got KO'd by the high overcast 🙁
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
Take care Kelly and have fun. Take some photo's.
I once had to determine the height of a bunch of towers atop multi story buildings in downtown Grand Rapids. I called it a geometric nightmare as I traversed, leveled and had vertical angles coming from hither to yon.
I guess it was ok and the FAA let them not put a blinking light on it. Scratch one off my list of things I don't want to do again.
Thanks for trying... If it breaks in the next 30 minutes or so, give it a shot... Otherwise thanks for trying!
BTW we measured 59.9 feet from the base to the tip of the shadow cast from a 24 foot range pole.
Little Rock, AR
12:05 central
25 foot level rod
39.6 ft. meas.
Shouldnt this be done on the Summer Solstice?
> Shouldnt this be done on the Summer Solstice?
Shouldn't matter. It's the same sun. I think if you're in Minneapolis in January and you see the sun, you make use of it.
Now don't you need to measure the distance from Minneapolis to Little Rock?
oh come on Larry. I do recall the longest winter I ever had was that 2 hr layover in Minnysootaa. Plus I don't like their football team.
I'm sticking to the utility pole though. Never met a 24 ft range pole that hasn't been banged around in a truck and thus is bent and/or warped. And for 5 km tolerance I think I'd just pace it. But if the kids learn a trick or why it isn't a trick, that's a good thing.
Would be cool to help you out for people in the right area. Heck you can probably cover a good part of the country if you schedule it a few days out and let these guys know.
Schedule another one for next week sometime.
Ideally. But we don't have that in the budget.
I will report back Thursday with the results.
I think we'll do that. We have some preliminary data to start with. We'll report back...
Help on a historical recreation of the Alexandria to Syene
> I'd call Nate or Roadie ..
I am in Texas but I'm closer to the Pacific ocean than I am to East Texas o.O
