History of geodesy

Hellenistic world

 In Egypt, a Greek scholar and philosopher, Eratosthenes (276 BC– 195 BC), is said to have made
more explicit measurements. He had heard that on the longest day of the summer solstice, the
midday sun shone to the bottom of a well in the town of Syene (Aswan). At the same time, he
observed the sun was not directly overhead at Alexandria; instead, it cast a shadow with the
vertical equal to 1/50th of a circle (7° 12'). To these observations, Eratosthenes applied certain
"known" facts (1) that on the day of the summer solstice, the midday sun was directly over the
Tropic of Cancer; (2) Syene was on this tropic; (3) Alexandria and Syene lay on a direct north-
south line; (4) The sun was a relatively long way away (Astronomical_unit). Legend has it that he
had someone walk from Alexandria to Syene to measure the distance: that came out to be equal
to 5000 stadia or (at the usual Hellenic 185 meters per stadion) about 925 kilometres.
 From these observations, measurements, and/or "known" facts, Eratosthenes concluded that,
since the angular deviation of the sun from the vertical direction at Alexandria was also the angle
of the subtended arc (see illustration), the linear distance between Alexandria and Syene was
1/50 of the circumference of the Earth which thus must be 50×5000 = 250,000 stadia or
probably 25,000 geographical miles. The circumference of the Earth is 24,902 miles (40,075.16
km). Over the poles it is more precisely 40,008 km or 24,860 statute miles. The actual unit of
measure used by Eratosthenes was the stadion. No one knows for sure what his stadion equals
in today's units, but most current specialists in antiquities accept that it was the regular Hellenic
185 meter stadion, and few if any would incline to an obscure definition that happened to make
Eratosthenes's result correct.
 Ancient India

 The great Indian mathematician Aryabhata (AD 476 - 550) was a pioneer of
mathematical astronomy. He describes the earth as being spherical and that
it rotates on its axis, among other things in his work Āryabhaṭīya.
Aryabhatiya is divided into four sections. Gitika, Ganitha (mathematics),
Kalakriya (reckoning of time) and Gola (celestial sphere). The discovery that
the earth rotates on its own axis from west to east is described in
Aryabhatiya ( Gitika 3,6; Kalakriya 5; Gola 9,10;).[4] For example he
explained the apparent motion of heavenly bodies is only an illusion (Gola
9), with the following simile;Just as a passenger in a boat moving
downstream sees the stationary (trees on the river banks) as traversing
upstream, so does an observer on earth see the fixed stars as moving
towards the west at exactly the same speed (at which the earth moves
from west to east.)Aryabhatiya also estimates the circumference of Earth,
accurate to 1% which is remarkable. Aryabhata gives the radius of planets
in terms of the Earth-Sun distance as essentially their periods of rotation
around the Sun. He also gave the correct explanation of lunar and solar
eclipses and that the Moon shines by reflecting sunlight.
 Islamic world

 he Muslim scholars, who held to the spherical Earth theory, used it to

calculate the distance and direction from any given point on the earth to
Mecca. This determined the Qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer. Muslim
mathematicians developed spherical trigonometry which was used in these
calculations.Around AD 830 Caliph al-Ma'mun commissioned a group of
astronomers to measure the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to al-Raqqah,
in modern Syria. They found the cities to be separated by one degree of
latitude and the distance between them to be 66 2/3 miles and thus
calculated the Earth's circumference to be 24,000 miles.[6] Another
estimate given was 56 2/3 Arabic miles per degree, which corresponds to
111.8 km per degree and a circumference of 40,248 km, very close to the
currently modern values of 111.3 km per degree and 40,068 km
circumference, respectively.Muslim astronomers and geographers were
aware of magnetic declination by the 15th century, when the Egyptian
Muslim astronomer 'Izz al-Din al-Wafa'i (d. 1469/1471) measured it as 7
degrees from Cairo.
 Biruni

 Abu Rayhan Biruni was a polymath who is considered a pioneer in geodesy.Of the medieval
Persian Abu Rayhan Biruni (973-1048) it is said:"Important contributions to geodesy and
geography were also made by Biruni. He introduced techniques to measure the earth and
distances on it using triangulation. He found the radius of the earth to be 6339.6 km, a value not
obtained in the West until the 16th century. His Masudic canon contains a table giving the
coordinates of six hundred places, almost all of which he had direct knowledge. At the age of 17,
Biruni calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarazm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun. Biruni
also solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth's
circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth's circumference.[10][11] His
estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of
6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors who measured the Earth's circumference by sighting
the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, Biruni developed a new method of using
trigonometric calculations based on the angle between a plain and mountain top which yielded
more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference and made it possible for it to be
measured by a single person from a single location.[12][13][14] Abu Rayhan Biruni's method
was intended to avoid "walking across hot, dusty deserts" and the idea came to him when he
was on top of a tall mountain in India.[14] From the top of the mountain, he sighted the dip
angle which, along with the mountain's height (which he calculated beforehand), he applied to
the law of sines formula. This was the earliest known use of dip angle and the earliest practical
use of the law of sines.[13][14] He also made use of algebra to formulate trigonometric
equations and used the astrolabe to measure angles.
Abu Rayhan Biruni accurately determined the Earth radius by
formulating a trigonometric equation relating the dip angle
(between the true horizon and astronomical horizon) observed
from the top of a mountain to the height of that mountain.
 Medieval Europe

 Revising the figures attributed to Posidonius, another

Greek philosopher determined 18,000 miles as the
Earth's circumference. This last figure was promulgated
by Ptolemy through his world maps. The maps of
Ptolemy strongly influenced the cartographers of the
Middle Ages. It is probable that Christopher Columbus,
using such maps, was led to believe that Asia was only 3
or 4 thousand miles west of Europe. It was not until the
16th century that his concept of the Earth's size was
revised. During that period the Flemish cartographer,
Mercator, made successive reductions in the size of the
Mediterranean Sea and all of Europe which had the
effect of increasing the size of the earth.
 19th century

 In the late 19th century the Zentralbüro für die

Internationale Erdmessung (that is, Central Bureau for
International Geodesy) was established by Austria-
Hungary and Germany. One of its most important goals
was the derivation of an international ellipsoid and a
gravity formula which should be optimal not only for
Europe but also for the whole world. The Zentralbüro
was an early predecessor of the International
Association of Geodesy (IAG) and the International
Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) which was
founded in 1919.