Bits and Pieces

How many of you have heard of the Arago markers that appear all around Paris?   I decided to find out more about them as I discovered several on my explorations.   They are important to the plot of the Da Vinci Code, but there is more to them.   Take a look.

The Observatory of Paris is the oldest observatory in service in the world. It was built in 1667 by the architect Claude Perrault. The four facades of the building are oriented towards the four cardinal points. The median line of the building defined the meridian of Paris from 1667 to 1884: the French then adopted the international meridian that passes through Greenwich near to London.

Still today it is one of the world centers for astronomic research, even though it has been associated with the observatories of Meudon and Nancay (Cher department). The observatory diffuses the "coordinated universal time" based on international atomic time.

Since 1995, the Netherlands artist Jean Dibbets marked the imaginary Meridian line across Paris with 135 bronze plaques of 12 cm in diameter set in the ground, marked North and South, and bearing the name of François Arago (1786-1853), a prominent astronomer and political figure. The route, of course, crosses the Observatoire de Paris (Paris Observatory)

It also travels through other parts of Paris, known as the "Rallye Transparisien," making a good excuse for Getting Lost in Paris. like we needed an excuse to get lost anywhere. http://www.lostintelligencer.com/dumbass/2000/0003arago/0003arago.html

I found this one at the Palais Royale. We found one in the middle of the Louvre also.   Where have you seen them?

Here's an amusing footnote: for a long time, the French wanted the Prime Meridian to pass through the Paris Observatory, while the British wanted it to be at Greenwich. Neither side would budge until the Brits agreed to a compromise: if the French would allow that Greenwich was zero longitude, the UK would convert all measurements to the metric system.