Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth
“Some members of the French Academy of Sciences interpreted measurements taken in Paris by scientists including Jacques Cassini as supporting the idea that the Earth was elongated at the poles, resembling a lemon or a melon.
By contrast, Isaac Newton had proposed that the centrifugal force caused by the Earth’s rotation would result in the planet being flattened at its poles, thus having a similar shape to an orange.”
Royal Society exhibition revives 18th-century debate about shape of the Earth
“_Some members of the French Academy of Sciences interpreted measurements taken in Paris by scientists including Jacques Cassini as supporting the idea that the Earth was elongated at the poles, resembling a lemon or a melon.
By contrast, Isaac Newton had proposed that the centrifugal force caused by the Earth’s rotation would result in the planet being flattened at its poles, thus having a similar shape to an orange._”
—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”
May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763