Zero to One-Eighty

October 23, 2009 / Lucy Rodgers wrestles mightily with triumphalism.

Lucy it was kind of you to tell your readers why my weblog is called Zero to One-Eighty, using nothing less than the solid expository power of the bulleted list:

• All points on the Prime Meridian are at 0° longitude
• All other points on the earth have longitudes ranging from 0° to 180°E or from 0° to 180°W…
• Unlike the parallels of latitude, which are defined by the rotational axis of the Earth, the Prime Meridian is arbitrary

It was an informative article — aside from all the venerable Greenwich Obervatory, historical import, British sea power ra-ra-ra — though I couldn’t shake the feeling that every time you said “arbitrary” you also meant “(but somehow so right).”