The Bedford Level Experiment was a series of observations carried out along a six-mile length of the Bedford Level (the Old Bedford River), Norfolk, England, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was an attempt to demonstrate that the Earth was flat. Early results seemed to prove this contention, but most later attempts to reproduce the observations firmly supported the conventional view that the earth is a sphere. The Old Bedford River is a tributary of the River Great Ouse in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England. ... Norfolk (IPA: //) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England. ... Adjectives: Terrestrial, Terran, Telluric, Tellurian, Earthly Atmosphere Surface pressure: 101. ...

Method

At the point chosen for all the experiments the Level was a slow-flowing drainage canal running in uninterrupted straight line for a six-mile stretch to the north-east of the village of Welney. The most famous of the observations, and the one that was taught in schools until photographs of the Earth from space became available, involved a set of three poles fixed at equal height above water level along this length. As the surface of the water was assumed to be level, the discovery that the middle pole, when viewed carefully through a theodolite, was almost three feet higher than the poles at each end was finally accepted as a new proof that the surface of the earth was indeed curved. Welney is a small town in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England. ... An optical theodolite, manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1958 and used for topographic surveying. ...

History

Diagram of Rowbotham’s experiment on the Bedford Level, taken from his book “Earth not a globe”

The first investigation was carried out by Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884), the president of the Flat Earth Society, in the summer of 1838. He waded into the river and used a telescope held eight inches above the water to watch a boat with a five-foot mast row slowly away from him. He reported that the vessel remained constantly in his view for the full six miles to Welney bridge, whereas, had the water surface been curved with the accepted circumference of a spherical earth, the top of the mast should have been some eleven feet below his line of sight.^[1] Image File history File linksMetadata Rowbotham–curvature. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Rowbotham–curvature. ... Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816 – 1864), was an English inventor and writer who wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe, based on his literal interpretation of certain biblical passages, published a 16-page pamphlet (1849), which he later expanded into a 430 page book (1881) expounding his views. ... The Flat Earth Society is an organization first based in England and later in Lancaster, California that advocates the false theory that the Earth is not a sphere but is flat (see also Flat Earth). ...

Rowbotham repeated his experiments several times over the years but his discoveries received little attention until, in 1870, a supporter by the name of John Hampden offered a wager that he could show, by repeating Rowbotham’s experiment, that the earth was flat. The noted explorer and qualified surveyor Alfred Russel Wallace accepted the wager. Wallace, by virtue of his surveyor’s training, avoided the errors of the preceding experiments and he won the bet.^[2] Hampden, however, published a pamphlet alleging that Wallace had cheated and sued for his money. Several protracted court cases ensued, with the result that Hampden was imprisoned for libel.^[3] Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS (January 8, 1823 – November 7, 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. ...

In 1901 explorer H Youle Oldham, a geography professor at Cambridge University, conducted the definitive experiment described in Method, above.^[4] The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with one of the most selective sets of entry requirements in the United Kingdom. ...

The planists, however, were not yet defeated: On 11 May 1904 Lady Anne Blount hired a commercial photographer to use a telephoto lens camera to take a picture from Welney of a large white sheet she had placed, touching the surface of the river, at Rowbotham’s original position six miles away. The photographer, a Mr Clifton from Dallmeyer’s studio, mounted his camera two feet above the water at Welney and was surprised to be able to obtain a picture of the target, which should have been invisible to him given the low mounting point of the camera. Lady Blount published the pictures far and wide and, apart from some hypothesising concerning refraction, and dark hints of collusion between Blount and Clifton, these have not been explained.^[5] The Flat Earth Society is an organization first based in England and later in Lancaster, California that advocates the false theory that the Earth is not a sphere but is flat (see also Flat Earth). ... May 11 is the 131st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (132nd in leap years). ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... Thomas Rudolphus Dallmeyer (1859-1906), Anglo-German optician was the son of John Henry Dallmeyer who ran an optics business. ... Atmospheric refraction is the deviation of light or other electromagnetic wave from a straight line as it passes through the atmosphere due to the variation in air density as a function of altitude. ...

References

1. ^ Samuel Birley Rowbotham, writing as “Parallax” (1881): Earth not a globe. Simpkin, Marshall, London. ISBN 0-7661-4945-5.
2. ^ Nature 7 April 1870.
3. ^ Hampden, John (1870): The Bedford Canal swindle detected & exposed. A. Bull, London.
4. ^ Oldham, H Youle (1901): Annual Report. British Association for the Advancement of Science, London.
5. ^ Michell, John (1984): Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions. Thames and Hudson, London. ISBN 0-500-01331-4.