db1668: Magnetic Variation near Bristol, England on May 23, 1668

In jrnold/datums: Miscellaneous Data Sets

Description

This is from a note published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1668. The editor, Henry Oldenburg, printed parts of a letter from "D.B." with five values of the magnetic variation near Bristol, England on May 23, 1668. This letter is notable in that he calculates the "mean of the true Variation", where "mean" refers to the arithmetic mean. It is referenced by Stigler as the first instance in which the term "mean" is used to refer to the arithmetical mean. D.B. reported a mean of 1 degree 27 minutes, rounding down from the arithmetic mean of 1 degree 28 minutes.

Usage

db1668

Format

A data frame with 5 rows and 4 columns.

name	type	description
sun_altitude	"numeric"	Sun's altitude in degrees
magnetic_azimuth	"numeric"	Magnetic azimuth in degrees
sun_azimuth	"numeric"	Sun's azimuth in degrees
variation	"numeric"	Variation in degrees westerly, between true north (sun azimuth) and magnetic north (magnetic azimuth)

Source

Stigler, Stephen M. The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom

References

Stigler, Stephen M. The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, p. 26

See Also

gellibrand and borough for other early datasets used to (almost) calculate means.

jrnold/datums documentation built on May 20, 2019, 1 a.m.