Talk:John Whitehurst

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group.

Cheshire Low‑importance

	Cheshire portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cheshire, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Cheshire on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CheshireWikipedia:WikiProject CheshireTemplate:WikiProject CheshireCheshire articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Derby Museum and Art Gallery C‑class High‑importance

	This article is related to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Please copy assessments of the article from the most major WikiProject template to this one as needed.Derby Museum and Art GalleryWikipedia:GLAM/DerbyTemplate:WikiProject Derby Museum and Art GalleryDerby Museum and Art Gallery-related articles
C	This article has been given a rating which conflicts with the project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Nonsense

Starting on the assumption that the length of a second pendulum in the latitude of London was 39.2 inches, he deduced that the length of one oscillating forty-two times a minute is eighty inches, while that of one oscillating twice as many times is twenty inches. The difference between these two lengths would therefore be exactly five feet. He found, however, upon experiment that the actual difference was only 59.892 inches owing to the real length of the pendulum, oscillating once a second, being 39.125 inches. He obtained roughly, however, data from which the true lengths of pendulums, the spaces through which heavy bodies fall in a given time, and many other particulars relating to the force of gravitation and the true figure of the earth, could be deduced.

This paragraph doesn't make sense- and is impossible to translate. As it is unreferenced- I can't correct it- has it been copied out of contest from the DNB- or paraphrased wrongly.? --ClemRutter (talk) 23:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This a problem of interpretation of how to read latitude and longitude. As we know London location at coordinates: 51°30′26″N 0°7′39″W this we must read degree, minutes and seconds, not degree, feet and inches. Please correct the article. I already translate in proper translation in Bahasa Indonesia. Sanko (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no error (but I have PhD in physics). However it cloud be formatted clearer. The key sentence is in the end. Perhaps the paragraph should start: Whitehurst wanted to study the shape of the earth by measuring differences in gravitation. For this, he studied heavy pendulums in different locations. He measured the length of the pendulum, the frequency of its oscillation and the length of the path its head was moving. He compared these to theoretical values he calculated assuming the globe is spherical. (After this, you could add the original paragraph or leave it out, whatever...) Language edit welcome. (Actually, I could post this to simple English, is it simple enough ?) --Tappinen (talk) 06:22, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a good idea, why not try doing that? Andrew Dalby 10:27, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A whole lot better--- but --- what is a second pendulum? One that has length that gives an oscllation of 1/3600th of an hour? One thats stroke is limited to 1/3600th a degree. If it is the one he set up before the third pendulum- which was the first? The word is ambiguous and in the context given cannot be any one of the three possibilities I have mentioned. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That expression seems to come directly from "Dictionary of National Biography", and the 18th century sources of that dictionary are not available. I suggest removing the confusing sentences with unnecessarily detailed explanations.--Tappinen (talk) 08:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Big Ben"

I seem to recall reading that one of the Whitehurst family of clockmakers was one of three famous clockmakers to submit designs for a competition to design the clock for "Big Ben" he didn't win.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on John Whitehurst. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:05, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]