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Alex,

Yes, the book is about Delambre and Mechain.  Mechain is the one who
died.  The discrepancy also led to the meter not being quite the
right length.  I believe it was Mechain's results in Barcelona where
he tried to hide the error.

Fred

On May 2, 2007, at 11:49 PM, Alexandre E Eremenko wrote:

>
>
> Fred
>
>> The book, "The Measure of All Things," by
>> Ken Alder,
>
> We don't have it at Purdue. What is it about?
> The French expeditions measuring the length of
> the meridian?
>
> I read another book about measuring the Paris meridian
> by Delambre and Mechain to establish a "scientific standard
> of the meter". Mechain
> indeed once had
> unexplained error of the order of 2" or so,
> and he could not repeat the measurement after the
> error was discovered (because of a war).
> He tried to hide the error, and
> this essentially ruined his life and
> career...
>
>> The discrepancies had led, essentially, to the death of
>> one of the fellows performing the measurements.
>
> Who was that?
>
> Alex.
>
>
> >



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