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))

[Package GmooG version 0.7 Index]