newcomb {GmooG} | R Documentation |
Measurements of the speed of light by Newcomb in 1882
Description
Newcomb reported three series of measurements and regarded the third series used here as the best.
Usage
data(newcomb)
Format
A data frame with 66 observations on the following 6 variables.
Date
Day of the experiment (from 24 July to 5 September 1882)
Observer
Newcomb or Holcombe (who assisted Newcombe in these experiments)
Wt1
a weight given by Newcomb for the quality of the image observed
Wt2
a second weight for the quality of the image
Time
time taken in millionths of a second for light to travel a distance of 7.44242 kilometres in air
Wt
overall weight given by Newcomb to the observation
Details
This dataset and the dataset Mich1879 are both used in Chapter 5, "Measuring the speed of light".
Source
Newcomb, Simon. 1891. "Measures of the Velocity of Light Made Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Navy During the Years 1880-1882." Astronomical Papers 2: 107-230
Examples
data(newcomb, package="GmooG")
with(newcomb, summary(Time))