Past its Prime

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Notes

1.
It is not a coincidence that the fundamental bases of both the trigonometrical survey of France and Britain both lie now partly within major airports serving their capital cities (Orly and Heathrow respectively, serving Paris and London). The needs of state-sponsored surveyors for an extensive, accessible and low population-density flat plain were the same as the needs of airlines who needed to land aircraft near their major city destinations.
2.
Although its etymology is subject to doubt, the word has nothing to do with God (as in the word “theology”) but, apparently the Greek word for “sight‘ or “view‘ (as used in the word “theorem‘).
3.
As we have already seen, Britain adopted the metric system 100 years later, although the British system is still in popular use. It may well pass soon into complete obsolescence as the current generation of schoolchildren grow to maturity, since they are taught the metric system and find the British system used by their parents quaint, rather than traditional and familiar. The French still believe that Britain sticks with its old system because they drink beer in traditional pints when they visit. British Eurosceptics passionately argue against the imposition from Brussels of a European standard, and stick-in-the-mud members of the British Houses of Parliament still argue with nostalgia the merits of the familiar and the traditional. They are all unaware that metricization in Britain has happened.

Authors

Paul Murdin
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Murdin, P. (2009). Past its Prime. In: Full Meridian of Glory. Copernicus, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-75534-2_7