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Re: Biruni and the radius of the Earth by dip
From: John Huth
Date: 2011 Jan 4, 15:11 -0500
From: John Huth
Date: 2011 Jan 4, 15:11 -0500
Mercier's article in the History of Cartography was quite helpful. To be fair to al-Biruni - he evidently didn't accept his own method as being particularly accurate, but it seemed to be a curiosity to him - so I wouldn't fault al-Biruni. It appears that Razvi was the one who overstated the case with this manuscript that he discovered in 1959. In any case, this seems to be the origin. Sorry for taking up too much bandwidth, but at least it cleared up this misconception I was laboring under.
