Method
At the point chosen for all the experiments the river is a slow-flowing drainage canal running in an uninterrupted straight line for a six-mile stretch to the north-east of the village of Welney. The most famous of the observations, and the one that was taught in schools until photographs of the Earth from space became available, involved a set of three poles fixed at equal height above water level along this length. As the surface of the water was assumed to be level, the discovery that the middle pole, when viewed carefully through a theodolite, was almost three feet higher than the poles at each end was finally accepted as a new proof that the surface of the earth was indeed curved.
Read more about this topic: Bedford Level Experiment
Famous quotes containing the word method:
“Relying on any one disciplinary approachtime-out, negotiation, tough love, the star systemputs the parenting team at risk. Why? Because children adapt to any method very quickly; todays effective technique becomes tomorrows worn dance.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“You know, I have a method all my own. If youll notice, the coat came first, then the tie, then the shirt. Now, according to Hoyle, after that the pants should be next. Theres where Im different. I go for the shoes next. First the right, then the left. After that, its every man for himself.”
—Robert Riskin (18971955)