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:
“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand idly by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, & ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
““I have usually found that there was method in his madness.”
“Some folk might say there was madness in his method.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)