{"id":17120,"date":"2025-10-23T18:32:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/?p=17120"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:32:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:32:43","slug":"slightly-pear-shaped-the-story-of-mapping-and-surveying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/?p=17120","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSlightly pear-shaped: the story of Mapping and Surveying\u201c."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday\u00a0 9th October 2025 Presentation<\/strong><\/p>\n

The meeting at the RNA in Welwyn Garden City<\/strong> was very well attended with additional members joining in via a ZOOM link.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeremy Batch<\/strong> presented another of his interesting talks, the topic:-\u00a0
\u201cSlightly pear-shaped: the story of Mapping and Surveying<\/strong>\u201c.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEarth is pear-shaped\u201d became headline news in\u00a0March 1958 when the\u00a0<\/span>Vanguard<\/span><\/i>\u00a0satellite\u2019s orbit deviated from expectations,\u00a0irreparably\u00a0confusing a generation of schoolchildren and their geography teachers.
\"\"Jeremy gave answers to all of the questions posed below.

<\/span><\/span>That the Earth is round had been known for centuries; that it might also be (very) slightly oval was long-suspected, although we disagreed with the French as to which way the ovalwent.\u00a0\u00a0How did we work it out?
<\/span><\/span>Who was Mercator, how (on Earth) did he make his projection, and why is it not always used?
<\/span><\/span>How did the Swallows and Amazons make their map of the Walton Backwaters with nothing but a compass and a few\u00a0sticks; how\u00a0did the Romans give their aqueducts a slope of\u00a01\u00a0in\u00a03,000;\u00a0and how did the Egyptians align their pyramids?
<\/span><\/span>Plus: why, if\u00a0points had been given for effort, the\u00a0Prime Meridian really should have run through\u00a0<\/span>Paris;\u00a0<\/span>how a\u00a0globe, bought for \u00a3150 at a Welsh antiques fair during Covid,\u00a0then sold\u00a0at auction for a quarter of a\u00a0million; and how\u00a0Gladys West\u2019s model of the Earth allows your GPS to\u00a0work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

All of teh attendees enjoyed this very interesting talk.\u00a0 We hope to invite Jeremy back for the next part of this tale next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday\u00a0 9th October 2025 Presentation The meeting at the RNA in Welwyn Garden City was very well attended with additional members joining in via a ZOOM link. Jeremy Batch presented another of his interesting talks, the topic:-\u00a0\u201cSlightly pear-shaped: the story … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,29,1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-17120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meeting-presentation","category-soca","category-uncategorised","tag-soca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17150,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17120\/revisions\/17150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socasailing.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}