Jean Picard
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Jean-Felix Picard (July 21, 1620 – July 12, 1682) was a French astronomer and priest born in La Flèche, where he studied at the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand. He was the first person to measure the size of the Earth to a reasonable degree of accuracy, for which he is honored with a pyramid at Juvisy-sur-Orge. Guided by Maurolycus' methodology for doing so, Picard achieved this by measuring one degree of latitude along the Paris Meridian using triangulation. His measurements produced a result of between 111 and 112 km for one degree of latitude, which gives a corresponding terrestrial radius of 6372 km. The polar radius has now been measured at 6357 km.
External links
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. [] at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
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