Industrial Revolution was thanks to Columbus

[arildno]

Just a clarification:
Ø,ø are mostly used in Danish/Norwegian, whereas the Swedish use Ö, ö.

It is/was rather common for Danes to use "oe" instead of "ø", in particular in personal names, so "Ole Roemer, Oersted" are probably the forms they used.

 

[Selbstüberschätzug]

Columbus Day will be celebratet. Ay Ay captain!

(Couldent find a swiss exploration song... of course)

 

[Evo]

BTW, two things
1. do you know any short easy songs about exploration and discovery?
(could be made up, or found)I can only think of "The Happy Wonderer".

2. do you know how that danish fellow measured the speed of light in 1675?
(it was remarkable, he came within about 10 percent of the nowadays figure)I just vaguely remember something about it. Please tell me about it!

 

[marcus]

1. do you know any short easy songs about exploration and discovery?
(could be made up, or found)
I can only think of "The Happy Wonderer".

ARG

I love to go a wondering out on the mountain track
I love to go a wondering a backpack on my back
fol dar ee----fol dar oh---etc.

All right I suppose as a start. See what else you come up with.

------------
about Ole Roemer and the moon Io
it is really such a nice story that I want someone else to have the pleasure of telling it to you.
(are you sure you wouldn't like to tell the story yourself Evo?)

 

[marcus]

DAH DAHHH!

this is the story of Ole and Io, and Evo is going to tell it to us!

remember that this is a great coming-of-age story for our civilization:
if you look out at the Milky way you see the homes of many people
who are living in civilizations at different levels of development and the
main landmark is: some have already measured the speed of light
and others haven't figured out to do that yet.

Once upon a time in Denmark there was a little boy named Ole who lived with his old father and his old mother in their cottage, and on a nice spring day he decided to go to Paris. So he took a bright red bandana and packed his pocket knife and piece of cheese and a change of socks and tied it up and threw it over his shoulder and set out on his way. His weeping mother said Ole be sure to measure the speed of light, and his father wiped a tear from his wrinkled cheek and said yes boy be sure you get it right within 10 percent, remember you are a Roemer. And Ole went off down the road to Paris.

now Evo it is your turn. (look in the Britannica if you don't remember)

 

[marcus]

well Evo has declined to tell the next installment---I probably started the story wrong. But I still don't want to hog the mike, so if anyone else can tell how the first human to measure c did it please do. I like Ole Roemer almost as much as Columbus and if it was up to me I would date things BC and AR---- BC for Before C-was-measured and AR for After Roemer.

Ole is pronounced OOOleh (I know a norwegian Ole)

Ole and Io

Io goes around Jupiter once every 2 days or more exactly the synodic period is 1 day 18 hours and 29 minutes. Let's say 2549 minutes.

Ole could see Io hit the big planet's shadow and wink out, so he had a precise moment he could time.

Just suppose when Ole got to paris he found someone at the observatory who had counted Io orbits for 20 years so they knew how many minutes was in 20 years and they had counted how many times it had gone around so they could divide and say how many minutes each orbit takes, at least on average. Suppose they told Ole it was 2549. (seems reasonable)

Ole asked Mr Cassini the director of the observatory to give him a 24-hour clock and he took the clock to his room and used chewing gum and his nailfile to modify the clock so it went around once ever 2549 minutes.

then he set up his telescope and started watching the REAL clock, which was Io, and comparing it to the model, whose hands went around once ever 2549 minutes.

And he found that sometimes, for maybe 6 months or so, the real clock would gain---running imperceptibly faster until after 6 months or so it was just barely noticeably ahead

and then for about an equal periond it would lag, and run slower than the model clock, until it was back in synch again.

that is the end of this installment (it's a simplification, he never actually made the 2549 minute clock he just used ordinary clocks and arithmetic)

 

[Evo]

now Evo it is your turn. (look in the Britannica if you don't remember)

Sorry, I've been swamped with work.

 

[marcus]

Sorry, I've been swamped with work.

understand. I have a busy 4 days or so coming up myself.
hope you will take over telling a science story, at some point.
I will just go ahead and finish with Ole Roemer---it's almost done
I just have to make him calculate the speed of light from the amount
that the real Io clock gets ahead or behind the model clock.