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buttercup

Active member
Feb 28, 2005
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This is close enough to be considered correct!
The length of a meter was originally calculated as one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator, at sea level, so that distance would be 10, 000 kilometers, and the circumference of the Earth would be 40,000 kilometers, if it was perfectly spherical.
Unfortunately, this measurement is marginally off, (the circumference of Earth is about 40,007 km), and Earth is a spheroid, slightly wider at the equator.

Originally, the circumference of the line of longitude that passes through Paris was indeed exactly 40,000,000 metres, or 40,000 km - repeat exactly, by definition. It wasn't "marginally off". The circumference is 40,007 km, now, because the international standards authorities changed the definition of the length of the meter.

(BTW, there is no significance to the fact that the line of longitude was the one that passes through Paris, except that that is what the revolutionaries decreed. The bulging equator is the same for all lines of longit.)
 

Ceiling Cat

Well-known member
Feb 25, 2009
28,710
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SC's character, Roy Urquhart, was a Brigadier at Arnhem, in "A bridge too far".
The Sean Connery character was a Major General. The pic shows crossed swords on his epaulets.

 
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