Ivory's treatment of pendulum observations (Q1332244)

The British Scientist James Ivory (1765-1842) combined observations of the second pendulum in order to determine the ellipticity of the earth (1826-1830). Several dozens of such observations had already been made in various latitudes by Jean Charles de Borda and Jacques Cassini in 1772 at Paris, by Edward Sabine in 1821 at Maranham, and by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel since 1823 at Königsberg. Some local anomalies of gravity made the adjustment of the measurements difficult. Ivory made mistakes in the adjustment of measurements and in using the method of least squares. He did not give thought to weighing groups of pairs of neighbouring observations. In a letter to Wilhelm Olbers, Carl Friedrich Gauss (1827) criticized heavily Ivory's contribution, later this did also Immanuel Czuber (1891). By referring to local anomalies Ivory noticed that in general observation near the equator were irregular. He rejected outlying observations, and he expressed doubts about the possibility of determining a single figure of the earth. Later scientists overlooked Ivory's work since it offered no theoretical novelties and since then new data became available. 22 references.