| Abstract: | Brian Warner , Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, tells the story of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille's sojourn in South Africa.
Two hundred and fifty years ago French astronomer Nicolas Louis de la Caille spent two years at the Cape of Good Hope, carrying out astronomical and geodetic observations that had long-lasting repercussions. His measurements of the positions of nearly 10 000 southern stars led to the definition of the southern constellations which are used to this day; his discrepant measurement of the radius of the Earth provided a challenge that took much 19th-century labour to rectify, but led to an accurate trigonometric survey of South Africa that would otherwise not have occurred until much later. |
