Remember Longitude, the PBS special shown in America on A+E, based on the book by Dava Sobel? How about The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester? Well, to that collection add The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder, featured Inside Borders Oct 2002 edition, a book store chain recently arrived in Evansville Indiana, where I live, but undoubtedly a familiar chain name in many larger cities. What these 3 books have in common is that they help us understand the history of science by following along the struggles of the people who made the discoveries.
2 astronomers in the 1700'ds attempted to measure planet Earth, and their research led to our metric system, but apparently they made a mistake, and covered it up. What mistake? Aha, now you will have to read the book,
11:34:12 PM 
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