Arago: Tracking the Paris meridian line

The Earful Tower: Paris

Oliver Gee

Arts, Paris, Society & Culture, Travel, Places & Travel, France

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A is for Arago, the name of the scientist who helped map out the Paris meridian line (François Arago (1786-1853)).

In this episode, I explore the "Rose Line" (as it was called in the Da Vinci Code), seeking out the bronze medallions along the streets of Paris, through the Louvre, and into the Paris Observatory.

Featured is the voice of Nicolas Lesté-Lasserre, a science historian and the community manager of the Observatoire de Paris. He showed me around this incredible 17th century institution, which is usually closed to the public.

Find more, including beautiful pictures of the observatory, on The Earful Tower's website.

Become a Patreon member here to support this show and get extras.

The episode in this music is from Pres Maxson, featuring an original song called Le Meridien de Paris.

Click here for our walking tours of Paris.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Every day, tens of thousands of feet walk over bronze discs that are set out all over Paris,
0:09.8	seemingly haphazardly. Perhaps you personally have stepped over some of these discs without even
0:17.1	realizing it. You can find them under chairs in cafes. You can find them in the middle of
0:23.3	popular tourist destinations like the Palais Royal, the Luxembourg Gardens, and even the Louvre.
0:29.3	On each of these bronze discs, a five-letter word, A-R-A-G-O, above it a small N and below a small S. But what are these discs? What do they mean and why are they there?
0:49.6	This is the Yearful Tower. My name is Oliver G and welcome to the first episode of the A-B season, where A stands for Arago.
1:01.1	Music Now that was some original music from Press Max and written specifically for this episode. I want to talk
1:28.1	about it but in a second. First, a bit of background. I want to try and give you the idiot's guide to
1:33.6	Arago and Meridian lines. You'll hear more about it later from experts, but just so we're all on the same page.
1:40.0	Imagine the equator, the big line that runs around the center of the earth.
1:44.6	It was really easy for them to figure out where to put the equator
1:47.8	because it was as far away from the North Pole and the South Pole as you can get.
1:53.2	That's obvious.
1:54.4	But where do you put the equivalent of the equator if you go around the top and the bottom?
1:59.9	Where's the prime meridian? The problem is
2:03.1	everybody thought it should go through their big city, including the French, who wanted it to go
2:08.1	through Paris, and Francois Arago was really important in making this line through Paris. So,
2:16.4	that's crucial. In the end, this French meridian line didn't stick around.
2:21.7	As you all know, we ended up with the Greenwich Meridian line. But this French one sort of got fame
2:28.3	and remains really well known for several reasons. One is the Da Vinci Code, which we'll talk
2:33.8	about later. They called it the Rose Line. So if you see the Da Vinci Code, which we'll talk about later.
2:34.3	They called it the Rose Line.
	...

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