Swans on Tea

Oct. 13, 1884: Greenwich Resolves Subprime Meridian Crisis

Britain had first solved the problem of longitude, Britain had the world’s largest navy, and the sun indeed did not set on the far-flung British Empire. Britannia ruled the waves, so there was no need for Britain to waive its rules.

Thus, the conference established that the meridian passing through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich would be the world’s Prime Meridian, and all longitude would be calculated both east and west from it up to 180 degrees. The conference also established Greenwich Mean Time as a standard for astronomy and setting time zones.

Experiment vs. Theory: The Eternal Debate

Bottom line: we have lasers, with or without the sharks.

That’s something you can show off on a tour of the department and it’s guaranteed to make an impression on prospective students and parents.

From my perspective, it’s also something you can show off to admirals and generals and civilian upper-level cogs. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

It’s October, and that means it’s the time of year that the science blogging Donors Choose challenge gets underway. I see that among the blogs I regularly read, Cosmic Variance, Dot Physics and Uncertain Principles are all participating in the organized challenge for their respective blogging organizations. Please consider picking one (or via the Colbert challenge) and making a donation.

Update: add Bad Astronomy to the list