Eratosthenes Experiment Report: Concord Academy

From: psu_at_concordacademy.org
Date: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 12:29:22 PDT


Experiment Report for the Eratosthenes Project on http://youth.net/

School Name:     Concord Academy
School Location: Concord, MA

Email Address:   psu_at_concordacademy.org
Experimenter:    Astronomy Class

Latitude         42 deg 21' N
Longitude:       73 deg 4' W
Distance to Equator: 4364

Measured shadow angle in degrees: 42
Calculated Earth circumference:   37,000 km

Comments:
The measured shadow angle is the class average.

We looked in an atlas for a city that is as close to the equator as possible, that also has a longitude similar to ours.  The city we found was Cali, Colombia, which is 4364 km away.  The angular separation between us and Cali is 39 degrees (rather than the expected 42), and that accounts for the discrepancy in our measurement.


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