https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/0906.1366/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMThttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39546902urn:hackerpapers:mention:0906.1366:39546902Thu, 29 Feb 2024 06:33:44 GMT<p>The article is mainly about an interesting chapter in the history of the metre &lt;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre#Meridiona...&gt; which effectively won versus the second/metre pendulum approach (which was fiddly to calibrate and keep true for any given environment at a given point on Earth). The author is a well-known historian of science in the English enlightenment, and notably Newton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Fara . I would not expect the article to even touch on 21st century geodesy. A good theory for the solid earth tide only arrived in first dozen years of…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/0906.1366/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>gr-qc