No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 1985
The aim of this paper is to summarize the contributions made by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich that led, almost inevitably, to the choice of the Airy transit circle to define the zero meridian for the measurement of longitude and the beginning of the universal day. Although astronomical considerations were not of direct relevance to the deliberations of the 1884 conference, they formed the essential background to the navigational and civil interests which were dominant.