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The French said today that they are demanding that the Prime Meridian be moved from Greenwich to Paris after the completion of Brexit. They claim that Greenwich, London and the UK lose their right to "host" the 0-degree longitude line now that we've decided to cut ourselves off from Europe and the rest of the world.
The French acknowledge that it would be far too difficult to actually change all the satellites and the millions of GPS devices, so the move would be entirely symbolic rather than practical. It would be akin to having a symbolic 'metre' or 'kilogramme' housed in Sèvres when in fact there are far more precise and scientific measures of these units.
"The real 'zero meridian' is actually 100 metres east of where the tourists all think it is," a spokesman for the Obervatoire de Paris said, "so it should make no difference to the English if it is moved even further east, to Paris, where it can be looked after properly."
Full details of the French proposal are available by clicking here.
Posted : 01/04/2017 11:15 am
Haha, I wish I read this when you posted it!
But I did not know the meridian actually lies 102 metres east, that was an interesting article. I hope RMG can properly mark the new Meridian somehow, although that would be quite an undertaking for tourist logistics. I guess will be a low priority if it is at all on an RMG todo list.
On further reading of other articles on the Meridian Line, it appears that out of the 25 country delegates that met in Washington to decide on a universal zero degree longitude Prime Meridian, 22 countries voted in favour of Greenwich but France was one of two countries to decline voting! I wonder why? Was it just a rivalry thing or did they have a good logical reason? Haiti was the only country delegate to actually vote against whilst Brazil was the other country that declined to vote. This meeting was only in 1884 which established the world time zones. I didnt realise it was that relatively recent.
Posted : 04/04/2017 7:44 pm
