> was actually proposed back in the 17th century
Pretty sure it was done back in Sumer first.
Pretty sure it was done back in Sumer first.
>“It was contended," says Dr. Peacock, " by Paucton, in his Mẻtrologie, that the side of the Great Pyramid was the exact 1/500th part of a degree of the meridian, and that the founders of that mighty monument designed it as an imperishable standard of measures of length.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/06/revealed-isa...
>Newton was trying to uncover the unit of measurement used by those constructing the pyramids. He thought it was likely that the ancient Egyptians had been able to measure the Earth and that, by unlocking the cubit of the Great Pyramid, he too would be able to measure the circumference of the Earth.
(One meter is thus two Sumerian cubits, but that's an artifact due to us still using Sumerian time measurements.)
P.S. I don't know why Sumerians used a factor of two. Americans still divide the day into two 12 hour spans, according to Sumerian fashion.
P.P.S. One second is 1/(2*12*60*60) of a solar day. 12 and 60 were "round numbers" in Sumer; they used sexagesimal counting.
Interestingly, the Sumerians did not seem to employ this method, they would count 6 instances of counting to 10.