Lines of Longitude in Geography

Lines of Longitude in Geography Longitude is the angular distance of any point on Earth measured east or west of a point on Earths surface. Where Is Zero Degrees Longitude? Unlike latitude, there is no easy point of reference such as the equator to be designated as zero degrees in the longitude system. To avoid confusion, the worlds nations have agreed that the Prime Meridian, which passes through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, will serve as that reference point and be designated as zero degrees. Because of this designation, longitude is measured in degrees west or east of the Prime Meridian. For example, 30Â °E, the line passing through eastern Africa, is an angular distance of 30Â ° east of the Prime Meridian. 30Â °W, which is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is an angular distance of 30Â ° west of the Prime Meridian. There are 180 degrees east of the Prime Meridian and coordinates are sometimes given without the designation of E or east. When this is used, a positive value represents coordinates east of the Prime Meridian. There are also 180 degrees west of the Prime Meridian and when W or west is omitted in a coordinate a negative value such as -30Â ° represents coordinates west of the Prime Meridian. The 180Â ° line is neither east nor west and approximates the International Date Line. On a map (diagram), lines of longitude are the vertical lines running from the North Pole to the South Pole and are perpendicular to lines of latitude. Every line of longitude also crosses the equator. Because longitude lines are not parallel, they are known as meridians. Like parallels, meridians name the specific line and indicate the distance east or west of a 0Â ° line. Meridians converge at the poles and are farthest apart at the equator (about 69 miles (111 km) apart). Development and History of Longitude For centuries, mariners and explorers worked to determine their longitude in an effort to make navigation easier. Latitude was determined easily by observing the inclination of the sun or the position of known stars in the sky and calculating the angular distance from the horizon to them. Longitude could not be determined in this way because Earths rotation constantly changes the position of stars and the sun. The first person to offer a method for measuring longitude was the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. In the late 1400s, he began measuring and comparing the positions of the moon and Mars with their predicted positions over several nights at the same time (diagram). In his measurements, Vespucci calculated the angle between his location, the moon, and Mars. By doing this, Vespucci got a rough estimate of longitude. This method did not become widely used however because it relied on a specific astronomical event. Observers also needed to know the specific time and measure the moon and Mars positions on a stable viewing platform- both of which were difficult to do at sea. In the early 1600s, a new idea to measure longitude was developed when Galileo determined that it could be measured with two clocks. He said that any point on Earth took 24 hours to travel the full 360Â ° rotation of Earth. He found that if you divide 360Â ° by 24 hours, you find that a point on Earth travels 15Â ° of longitude every hour. Therefore, with an accurate clock at sea, a comparison of two clocks would determine longitude. One clock would be at the home port and the other on the ship. The clock on the ship would need to be reset to local noon each day. The time difference would then indicate the longitudinal difference traveled as one hour represented a 15Â ° change in longitude. Shortly thereafter, there were several attempts to make a clock that could accurately tell time on the unstable deck of a ship. In 1728, clockmaker John Harrison began working on the problem and in 1760, he produced the first marine chronometer called Number 4. In 1761, the chronometer was tested and determined to be accurate, officially making it possible to measure longitude on land and at sea. Measuring Longitude Today Today, longitude is more accurately measured with atomic clocks and satellites. The Earth is still divided equally into 360Â ° of longitude with 180Â ° being east of the Prime Meridian and 180Â ° west. Longitudinal coordinates are divided into degrees, minutes and seconds with 60 minutes making up a degree and 60 seconds comprising a minute. For example, Beijing, Chinas longitude is 116Â °2330E. The 116Â ° indicates that it lies near the 116th meridian while the minutes and seconds indicate just how close it is to that line. The E indicates that it is that distance east of the Prime Meridian. Although less common, longitude can also be written in decimal degrees. Beijings location in this format is 116.391Â °. In addition to the Prime Meridian, which is the 0Â ° mark in todays longitudinal system, the International Date Line is also an important marker. It is the 180Â ° meridian on the opposite side of the Earth and is where the eastern and western hemispheres meet. It also marks the place where each day officially begins. At the International Date Line, the west side of the line is always one day ahead of the east side, no matter what time of day it is when the line is crossed. This is because the Earth rotates east on its axis. Longitude and Latitude Lines of longitude or meridians are the vertical lines running from the South Pole to the North Pole. Lines of latitude or parallels are the horizontal lines running from the west to the east. The two cross each other at perpendicular angles and when combined as a set of coordinates they are extremely accurate in locating places on the globe. They are so accurate that they can locate cities and even buildings to within inches. For example, the Taj Mahal, located in Agra, India, has a coordinate set of 27Â °1029N, 78Â °232E. To view the longitude and latitude of other places, visit the collection of Locate Places Worldwide resources on this site.

Copia and Copiousness in Rhetoric

Copia and Copiousness in Rhetoric The rhetorical term copia refers to expansive richness and amplification as a stylistic goal. Also called  copiousness and abundances.  In Renaissance rhetoric, the figures of speech were recommended as ways to vary students means of expression and develop copia.  Copia (from the Latin for abundance) is the title of an influential rhetoric text published in 1512 by Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. Pronunciation: KO-pee-ya Examples and Observations Because ancient rhetoricians believed that language was a powerful force for persuasion, they urged their students to develop copia in all parts of their art. Copia can be loosely translated from Latin to mean an abundant and ready supply of language- something appropriate to say or write whenever the occasion arises. Ancient teaching about rhetoric is everywhere infused with the notions of expansiveness, amplification, abundance.(Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Modern Students. Pearson, 2004)Erasmus on Copia- Erasmus is one of the early enunciators of that sanest of all precepts about writing: write, write, and again write. He also recommends the exercise of keeping a commonplace book; of paraphrasing poetry into prose, and vice versa; of rendering the same subject in two or more styles; of proving a proposition along several different lines of argument; and of construing from Latin into Greek...The first book of De Copia showed the student how to use the sche mes and tropes (elocutio) for the purpose of variation; the second book instructed the student in the use of topics (inventio) for the same purpose...By way of illustrating copia, Erasmus in Chapter 33 of Book One presents 150 variations of the sentence Tuae literae me magnopere delectarunt [Your letter has pleased me greatly]...(Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4th ed. Oxford Univ. Press, 1999)- If I am truly that peace so extolled by God and by men; if I am really the source, the nourishing mother, the preserver and the protector of all good things in which heaven and earth abound;... if nothing pure or holy, nothing that is agreeable to God or to men can be established on earth without my help; if, on the other hand, war is incontestably the essential cause of all the disasters which fall upon the universe and this plague withers at a glance everything that grows; if, because of war, all that grew and ripened in the course of t he ages suddenly collapses and is turned into ruins; if war tears down everything that is maintained at the cost of the most painful efforts; if it destroys things that were most firmly established; if it poisons everything that is holy and everything that is sweet; if, in short, war is abominable to the point of annihilating all virtue, all goodness in the hearts of men, and if nothing is more deadly for them, nothing more hateful to God than war- then, in the name of this immortal God I ask: who is capable of believing without great difficulty that those who instigate it, who barely possess the light of reason, whom one sees exerting themselves with such stubbornness, such fervor, such cunning, and at the cost of such effort and danger, to drive me away and pay so much for the overwhelming anxieties and the evils that result from war- who can believe that such persons are still truly men?(Erasmus, The Complaint of Peace, 1521)- In the right spirit of playfulness and experimentatio n, Erasmuss exercise can be both fun and instructive. Although Erasmus and his contemporaries clearly were delighted by language variation and exuberance (think of Shakespeares indulgence in his comedies), the idea was not simply to pile up more words. Rather copiousness was about providing options, building stylistic fluency that would allow writers to draw upon a large array of articulations, choosing the most desirable.(Steven Lynn, Rhetoric and Composition: An Introduction. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010) Backlash Against CopiaThe latter part of the sixteenth century and the first part of the seventeenth witnessed a reaction against eloquence, specifically against Ciceronian style as a model for writers, both in Latin and in vernacular literature (Montaigne, for example)... The anti-Ciceronians distrusted eloquence as something speciously ornamental, therefore insincere, self-conscious, unsuited for expressing private or adventurous reflections or disclosures of the self... It was [Francis] Bacon, not inappropriately, who wrote the epitaph of copia in that famous passage of his Advancement for Learning (1605) where he describes the first distemper of learning when men study words and not matter....It is ironical that in later years Bacon came to dislike the excesses of Senecan style nearly as much as those of copie. It is likewise ironical that the man who deplored the former popularity of copia was, of all writers in his time, most responsive to the advice in De copia about collectin g notes. Bacons obsessive fondness in his writings for sententiae, aphorisms, maxims, formulae, apophthegms, his promptuary, and his habit of keeping commonplace books were a tribute to the methods taught by Erasmus and the other humanists. Bacon was more indebted to prescriptions for copia than he allowed, and his prose leaves little doubt that he was studious of words as well as matter.(Craig R. Thompson, Introduction to Collected Works of Erasmus: Literary and Educational Writings I. University of Toronto Press, 1978)