Gauging the earth

Extract

In an earlier note by W. J. A. Colman [1], the reader was treated to an interesting discussion concerning a BBC programme about the earth's radius in the context of endeavours to determine it by an 11th century Persian mathematician, Al-Biruni. At the same time a modem but approximate formula that might not have been available to the ancients was proposed for the radius and, following that account, it is the purpose here to explore just how accurately one might determine the earth's radius using this formula together with a simple measurement apparatus (not a sophisticated astrolabe) that might be constructed from materials found in the garage of any DIY handyman, or indeed, in the laboratory of any school science department. A schematic for the configuration of an observer P at a height h above the earth (of radius R) where the deflection angle to the horizon is denoted by θ, is shown in Figure 1. Also shown in the figure is a ‘sighting tube’ of length L about which more will be said later.