Quadrant
I enjoyed seeing this in Oxford's rather nice museum of the history of science. (Just west of Sheldonian)
How would you measure... precisely... the position of a star in the sky? This quadrant was made by John Bird in 1773, part of the original equipment of the Radcliffe Observatory. Remember that clocks to tell you the time accurately (part of the puzzle of "where is that star?" were only recently available that far back!
For similar "wonders of measurement" stuff, I invite you to my web-page about making your own maps....
www.arunet.co.uk/tkboyd/mm1.htm
My id for photo: 1009
Quadrant
I enjoyed seeing this in Oxford's rather nice museum of the history of science. (Just west of Sheldonian)
How would you measure... precisely... the position of a star in the sky? This quadrant was made by John Bird in 1773, part of the original equipment of the Radcliffe Observatory. Remember that clocks to tell you the time accurately (part of the puzzle of "where is that star?" were only recently available that far back!
For similar "wonders of measurement" stuff, I invite you to my web-page about making your own maps....
www.arunet.co.uk/tkboyd/mm1.htm
My id for photo: 1009