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French revolt against Prime Meridian-Sort Of
Well, this amused Rob and I so much that we just had to post it. Rather then continue to use the World-accepted Prime Meridian (Yeah, who needs standards?), the French Government has decided that the world' prime meridian runs through Paris. To celebrate, they're building groves of trees all the way down through France, which will be viewable from space. I should be clear: This is the Government, not a popular action by the people. And I think this is only 1/2 as stupid as US Crypto laws. I've been told that this is actually one of those many Millenium Celebration things, and not actually a revolt-thanks to those who write me.
Because German soldiers like to march in the shade!
What are French military exercises like?
Actually, let's get our fact a bit straight here...:
1) It is known as the "Meridien de Paris" or Paris' Meridian.
2) It is meant to be a celebration of the end of the millenium
3) It will consits of school kids holding hands for a few minutes so that there will be an uninterrupted line of people near the west-east center of France passing through Paris.
4) Trees are/will be planted along that lines every few 100's meters so that a line of tress will be visible from the air
Bashing the French might be fun and a national bobby, but you should at least get your facts straight! Yes, France does strange things and this is another example of the weird artistic taste (like the Louvre Pyramids) but at least they are trying to do things that are nice just because they can be done...
If I remember my history correctly, there was a great debate as to where the prime meridian was supposed to be at first. It obviously came down to France and England, and it's rather obvious who 'won'. Now, I'm not looking to play the blame game but England and the United States are not ones to speak when it comes to avoiding world-accepted standards (inches vs. meters, driving left vs. driving right, etc). So please, before you insult the whole French population, think of your own country and how it stands out from the others in terms of standards. Also, one of the posts was saying that the French are arrogant, and although I'm not saying they aren't, you can't deny that there is no country more arrogant than the USA. And yes, for the last time, I think this is a dumb idea.
Let the flaming begin! (right KrON?)
"Mankind in general occupies the position between the angels and the French." -Mark Twain
But then, we 'mericans can't say much since we can't comprehend the metric system.
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Ok here goes..
90 % of the population is right-handed, and in days of yore, people drove in the middle of the road. When they passed someone coming in the other direction, 90% of peopl pulled in to the left to present their "sword hand" to the on-coming vehicle in case the occupants were enemies.
It was usually middle- and upper-class people who could afford coaches/horses etc in those days, so the French revolution changed things.
After and during the revolution, people drove and rode on the opposite side of the road (the right) to show their contempt for the middle and upper classes.
This practice was adopted throughout republican Europe, and spread to the New World.
Us Brits and other eccentrics stuck to driving on the left.
Hope that clears up a few things.
Lots of love,
Morbid
xxx
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
The reason the Prime Meridian is where it is is because of the Greenwich Observatory, considered at the time to be the astronomical observatory. It wasn't because England wanted to be the world's center of culture, it was so that when an astronomer anywhere in the world noted the time of an event, it could easily be converted to the precise (as in not-off-by-even-one-second) time at a major observatory.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Read it, y'all. Even back when measuring longitude was still a challenge worth a king's ransom, England and France were haggling over the placement of the prime meridian.
And it's a biography of a cool 18th century hacker.
...historically the french used the Paris meridian for a long time before switching to the std one. :)
So people don't get confused here, the french are in no way going to use the Paris meridian again, they're just celebrating it
(And btw even though I live in france I haven't heard about this story at all)
SLASHDOT - In a stunning turn of events, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) responded to France's actions, declaring that the equator runs directly through Redmond, Washington. Microsoft Corporation will place millions of DOS floppies end to end, forming a straight line that can be seen from space.
I hate to tell you all this, but there isn't a standard on the Prime Meridian. When you create a mapping system, you have to account for the curvature of the earth, including the fact that it is fatter at the equator (think of a slightly squished ball). As a result, map creators have created things called spheroid's (there are also datum's, which are related). Any decent map should tell you which spheroid and which datum it used to figure the latitude and longitude. Each spheroid is a little different, and each has their own "prime meridian". Spheroids are chosen to be very accurate in specific areas, and less so in others (there is no spheroid that gives more better than 100 meter accuracy everywhere on earth, and as far as I know, there isn't one that does very well at the poles).
If you go to England, and see the "official" marker for the Prime Meridian, and then check with your nifty GPS system, you will find that there is about a 100 meter difference (assuming my memory is correct in this). That is because all GPS systems (even those not American) uses a spheroid called WGS-1984, which is an *American* DoD spheroid, and is very accurate except for the north pole, south pole, and along the International Date Line. The British have used several different spheroids over the course of history, each one a little more accurate than the previous one, but each with their own areas on earth where they aren't so hot. The Soviets use GK (Gauss-Krueger, which I think was originally a German standard) which is very accurate in Europe, reasonable for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, but poor south of it. Many American sailors use Perry-1864. Most foreign sailors use International. The Japanese have a Tokyo standard, which does well in the Pacific. No one spheroid is really better than all the others everywhere (though WGS-1984 is better than most), and there is no standard spheroid, and hence no standard Prime Meridian (though WGS-1984, because of its association with GPS systems, might become a standard in the future).
Most of these spheroids differ only by a maximum of 600 meters or so, which is more than accurate for most of us. However, Sailors, pilots, and the military care very much which spheroids are being used. If you are using a map and you want to relay detailed information to someone else, you both have to agree on a spheroid. Luckely, most groups have a standard within themselves, so most pilots, sailors, and soldiers don't even know about all this. I only know all this because right now my job is working for a Government contractor that maintains software used by the U.S. Military Intelligence community, and I have been dealing mainly with different mapping subsystems, so I have a fairly "low-level" perspective on maps (not that I understand most of what I know).
Really, if the French want to do this, let them. It will probably mean another spheroid for everyone to worry about, but that isn't much of a big deal.
Stuff like this will continue until there is a recognized standard or until we move away from the stupid longitude/latitude way of doing things. I mean, the basis for Longitude/Latitude is that you can divide the world into little squares, which is obviously not accurate. 3D Polar Coordinates would be much better as long as you correctly model the shape of the earth.
French view on standards :
You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English K...kaniggets.