Mason Dixon

[David Nevin Friedman]

Anything by Umberto Eco is a great read...almost as great as Pynchon.
Anyone ever read Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum?  It makes GR look
simple...

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than have a frontal lobotomy..."
		--Unknown

"You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to 
die, or when you're supposed to be loving.  You have to forget about all 
these things.  You have to go on and be crazy.  Craziness is heaven."
		--Jimi Hendrix

On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Adam J. Thornton wrote:

> > Sez here in the New columbia encyclo that Charles Mason and Jeremiah 
> > Dixon were astronomers.  I admit I'm ignorant.  Surveying have a heck 
> > alot to do with astronomy in the 18th C?
> 
> Oh, my, yes.
> 
> Umberto Eco's _Island of the Day Before_ is a great read for the background
> of the longitude problem.  By the mid-18th century, you had an accurate
> chronometer, and star positions at given times were one good way to
> accurately locate your position; for a geodetic survey this would have been
> an invaluable set of skills.
> 
> Adam
> -- 
> adam at phoenix.princeton.edu | Viva HEGGA! | Save the choad! | 64,928 | Fnord
> "Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep":Pynchon | Linux
> Thanks for letting me rearrange the chemicals in your head. | Team OS/2
> You can have my PGP passphrase when you pry it from my cold, dead brain.
>