On 05/10/14 18:33, Peter Ilieve wrote:
On 5 Oct 2014, at 17:18, Lester Caine <lester@lsces.co.uk> wrote:
It is this area that wy own interests lie, and it is not clear from the limited data provided on James Gregory if his meridian was actually associated with setting time anywhere other than St. Andrew? Just what was the spread of usage of common time across the UK back in the 17th century?
Yes, I noticed that the St Andrews press release didn’t say anything about this meridian being used to define local time back then, even for the town, let alone anywhere else. It only mentions astronomical observations. Many of the meridians Paul mentions are simply astronomical reference point rather than 'timezone identifiers'?
A couple of minor points:
The town, and hence the university, is St Andrews. It’s the saint who is Andrew. Maybe your ? was just a typo. typo ... I've had a couple of new keyboards, but I'm back with the one which screws up occasionally just for it's feel ... 's' is one that gets missed
It wasn’t really the UK in the 17th century. Scotland was a separate kingdom, although under the same King as England post the union of the crowns in 1603. Those kingdoms weren’t united until the union of the parliaments in 1707. There are many reasons why Europe/London is not right going back in time :) The Isle of Man is not actually part of the UK either even today.
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