6 ms·
Wait, so it was actually believed that the Washington meridian just happened to fall exactly on an integer number of degrees (120-43 =77) west of Greenwich?
by madcaptenor 2mo ago
Wait, so it was actually believed that the Washington meridian just happened to fall exactly on an integer number of degrees (120-43 =77) west of Greenwich?
- kps 2mo agoPresumably defined rather than just happened, but not surveyed exactly enough. The US Capitol building is at 77.009°W.
- madcaptenor 2mo agoI'm guessing this is a coincidence, though; the Capitol is also, famously, on a Hill.
- somat 2mo agoIt is close, and if you consider Washington as a district there is a meridian exactly 77 degrees west somewhere in there. But I am here eyeballing maps and if the "Washington meridian" is considered the point of the capital it is ~ 1000 feet west of -77.0, should have chosen Stanton park. Seeing as Washington was a planned city I wonder if the capitol point was supposed to be -77.0 west but limitations in surveying accuracy put it where it is. A thousand foot error is not bad for 1800. In fact the very public line at Greenwich is off by ~ 50 feet. On the subject of eyeballing maps are there any online openstreetmap derivatives that have better cartography tools? (crosshair, lat long at specific point, distance and bearing lines, etc) I probably could install qgis for it, and osmand has a bunch of these tools. but the default osm page sort of sucks here.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_meridians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_meridians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Pier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Pier