Shape of the Earth - Full Meridian of Glory - page 63

wrote that it was the astronomers of the Academy and of France that had taken the
lead in establishing the shape of the Earth and “there is no justification, it seems to
me, for the English to be making noise about this.”
Cassini and his entourage regrouped to attack both Maupertuis' result and
Maupertuis himself. In the Academy, Cassini pointed to some weaknesses in
Maupertuis' techniques; he had measured quite a short distance, not even a full
degree of latitude; he had measured only the fundamental baseline at the southern
end of the triangulation chain, and not measured a baseline to check the northern
end; the astronomical measurements had not been re-calibrated at their finish.
Cassini also attacked Maupertuis personally. He inspired, perhaps encouraged
and possibly even helped write an anonymous pamphlet ( Physical and Moral
Stories ). The pamphlet stoked the fires lit by Cassini in the Academy and moved
rapidly from the technical deficiencies of the measurements to allegations that the
work exposed France to English ridicule. In a musical double entendre, the pamplet
accused Maupertuis of debauchery in Lapland: “He thought only of finding some
pretty girl to pass the night playing her guitar.” Even more so, on the authority of
the Abbé Outhier, the pamphlet accused Maupertuis of being a bad example to the
whole expedition: “Maupertuis' colleagues followed the example of their leader,
and each took a mistress.”
The Planström sisters, Elizabeth and Christine, were visible and relevant evi-
dence for the allegations of misconduct, even if the attacks were malicious,
exaggerated and had nothing to do with the science. Most of Maupertuis' col-
leagues kept their counsel and of them only Celsius attacked back. Voltaire
responded in his characteristically vivacious style, in the topic Elements of
Newtonian Philosophy (1738).
The message that the Lapland expedition brought home was clear: the length of
a degree in Lapland was longer than the length of a degree in France. « Le degré du
Méridien qui coupe le Cercler Polaire surpassant le degré dur Méridien en France,
la terre est une sphéroïde applati vers les Poles , » Maupertuis wrote : “The degree
on the meridian that cuts the Arctic Circle being larger than the degree on the
meridian in France, the Earth is a spheroid flattened at the poles.” The result was
acclaimed and Maupertuis triumphed over his scientific opponents. Voltaire
referred to Maupertuis as the “flattener of the Earth and the Cassinis.”
In reality, though, this result was too decisive because Maupertuis' measurement
(that the degree in Lapland was 500 meters longer than the degree in France) was
too much. “This flatness [of the Earth] appears even more considerable than Sir
Isaac Newton thought it,” wrote Maupertuis. Johann Bernouilli, on the other hand,
was sceptical, thinking that Maupertuis was biased: “Do the observers have some
predilection for one or other of these ideas? Because if they believe the Earth is
flattened at the poles they will surely find it so flattened. … [Therefore] I shall
await steadfastly the results of the American observation.” The Scottish mathemati-
cian James Stirling said that he too would remain neutral about the result, “till the
French arrive from the South, which I hear will be very soon.” He overestimated the
speed, though, with which La Condamine would return from South America.
Maupertuis' measurement was repeated in 1801-1803 by the Swedish geodesist
Jöns Svanberg, and the resulting length of a degree in Lapland was considerably