h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The person in question was making observations, and noting the times that things occurred.

Having finished his observations, he went to check his readings at his leisure. He was surprised to find out that the times that he had recorded, and the times published in the book that he was using did not agree....
He had complete confidence in his clock.....

Who was it?
When was it?
On further investigation of the book, what did he infer?
What momentous pronouncement did he make?
Who was the Greek who helped him and how?

+6 QI for revealing an astounding relationship!!


No Google or Wikipoedia, as usual.


Big clue.....Where on Earth does not come into the solution at all!!!





GT

GT, you took me by surprise here - try to remember to put QI in the subject/header

Is this to do with relativity? Or sundials?

Is it something to do with the moons of Jupiter and inferring the speed of light?

Is this a case of the book being written before the calendar changed and therefore the dates in it were all wrong?

At the risk of a , was this Edmond Halley predicting that his famous comet came round regularly i.e. every 75 years or so?

Anything to do with a John Harrison

I thought Harrison as well. I presumed that it was a description of the experiments he did that confirmed that his timepiece was more accurate for determining longitude than the methods previously used.

Right folks!!

Here we go.

Post 2, Robyn. Relativity. . Sorry, no. -5

Post 3. Correct Pedros! +3

Post 4. Ekky, no

Post 5. A comet. I am sorry!

Post 6 Bob, Post 7 Zagreb. Not Harrison and his clocks



GT

I think the time delay is that as Jupiter gets farther away, the eclipses of the Galilean moons are later than when Jupiter is closer. This means that light travels at a finite rate and isn't instantaneous. I think the time period was late 1600's or maybe early 1700's.

I'd guess the Greeks had a debate as to whether light moved instantaneously or not, but I don't know who it was. Ptolemny/Aristophanes/Anaxamander?

You were doing so well, Pedros, but jupiter moves?????

No, I know that you do not mean that literally. But due to Earth's orbit, Jupiter 'appears' to get further away, as you say the timings of the orbiting moons changes!
Correct +3. Plus another +3 for mentioning movement and moons

Not late 1600s or early 1700s. A tad earlier than that. In other words, not good enough for a point.

None of your Greeks are correct, but no klaxons there



GT

No 's' in pedro, GT.

Jupiter moves, both relative to us and the sun. I'm not sure what you mean.

Early 1600s then? Or, if that's too early middle 1600s?

I was going to say it determined the size of the solar system too, but the absolute size was determined in 1783 by watching a transit of Venus. I think Captain Cook was meant to observe it in Tahiti, but it was cloudy.

Rather mid to late 1600s Pedros! You are getting closer!

Yes, Jupiter does change its orbit around the sun, but that is a very slow process, and irrelevant to the QI as a whole!!




GT

1670?

I'll give you +1 for 1670 Pedros. It was actually 1677.




GT

greek

pythagorus

Sorry Taff. Pythagoras was one of my s


Sorry!!!



GT

you-clid

him of the jom-i-tree

Not Euclid........

But not a klaxon!!!!!




GT

I'll give this three more days, then kill it off and award points.





GT

Ptolemy?