In line with what Otared writes about the measurement of distances in
the context of Persia and ancient Rome, I am always very surprised to
see the precision of the measurements in the evaluation of the
circumference of the earth by Eratosthenes of Cyrene. What intrigues me
is not really the geometry calculations involved, but the calculation of
the distance between Aswan and Alexandria. There is little information
on the taking of this measurement: is it Egyptian surveyors (bematists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bematist) or the use of an instrument
equivalent to a pedometer? see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
Le 26/01/2022 à 09:41, Otared Kavian via ntg-context a écrit :
On 26 Jan 2022, at 00:17, Hans Hagen via ntg-context<ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:
[…]
times (clocks) were definitely different per city
Regarding the issue of the absolute necessity of defining a standard time the
book by Peter Galison « Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps » gives some
interesting insight. In particular, since after the mid 19th century trains
were developed while the time was not standardized, many accidents happened
with hundreds of people killed. This led Henri Poincaré, Lorentz and Einstein
(among other mathematcians and physicists) to th enotion of relativity…
Regarding the measure of the distance, area, volumes and weight indeed each
region of the world had its own units because the trade and exchange of
products were essentially local. With the progressive extension of the
exchanges between regions and countries the need for a standardization appeared
more and more.
For example the problem of measuring grains is a quite difficult one: if one
measures the weight, depending on how much humidity the grains contain, one has
different amount of the real stuff. If one measures the volume of the grains,
then according how compressed they are, the amount of the grains may be
different… (at some point there was a law which stated that when a unit vessel
of grains was to be sold, the seller should struck the bottom of the vessel on
a table three times and then refill again sthe vessel for it to be full).
The measure of the distances on roads in the Persian empire had one unit and
one subunit: « parasang » and « mil ». Parasang, which means « big stone » in
Persian, was the average distance which a fantassin could walk in a certain
amount of time, and was marked by a large piece of stone on the road (this is
also reported by Herodotus). Each parasang was divided into three « mil »,
which means « iron bar » in Persian, and was marked by planting an iron bar on
the road side. A parasang is between 5400 and 6000 meters, and thus a « mil »
is something about 1800 and 2000 meters. These units were used in many areas
outside the Persian empire, and are still used, in particular the parasang, in
Iran and Afghanistan (in Iran a parasang is 6 kilometers now). (Personnaly I
think the Roman mile has its origin in the Persian « mil »: I think the
etymology of the word mile based on the word « mille », a thousand, cannot be
correct since it does not correspond to one thousand of any other unit of
length used in the Roman empire).
Best regards: Otared
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