The Greenwich Meridian

When you visit London, it is worth it to pay a visit to the prime Meridian of the world, The Greenwich Meridian…. A place where man makes the time.
A meridian is a north-south line selected as the zero reference line for astronomical observations. By comparing thousands of observations taken from the same meridian it is possible to build up an accurate map of the sky.
The line in Greenwich represents the Prime Meridian of the World – Longitude 0º. Every place on Earth is measured in terms of its distance east or west from this line. The line itself divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the Earth – just as the Equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres.
In 1884 the Prime Meridian was defined by the position of the large “Transit Circle” telescope in the Observatory’s Meridian Building. The transit circle was built by Sir George Biddell Airy, the 7th Astronomer Royal, in 1850. The cross-hairs in the eyepiece of the Transit Circle precisely defined Longitude 0° for the world. As the earth’s crust is moving very slightly all the time the exact position of the Prime Meridian is now moving very slightly too, but the original reference for the prime meridian of the world remains the Airy Transit Circle in the Royal Observatory, even if the exact location of the line may move to either side of Airy’s meridian.
Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time. Before this, almost every town in the world kept its own local time. There were no national or international conventions which set how time should be measured, or when the day would begin and end, or what length an hour might be. However, with the vast expansion of the railway and communications networks during the 1850s and 1860s, the worldwide need for an international time standard became imperative.
The Greenwich Meridian was chosen as the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884. Forty-one delegates from 25 nations met in Washington DC for the International Meridian Conference. By the end of the conference, Greenwich had won the prize of Longitude 0º by a vote of 22 to 1 against (San Domingo), with 2 abstentions (France and Brazil).
There were two main reasons for the choice. The first was the fact that the USA had already chosen Greenwich as the basis for its own national time zone system. The second was that in the late 19th century, 72% of the world’s commerce depended on sea-charts which used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian.
The decision, essentially, was based on the argument that by naming Greenwich as Longitude 0º, it would be advantageous to the largest number of people. Therefore the Prime Meridian at Greenwich became the centre of world time, and will be the official starting point for the new Millennium.

The Royal Observatory of Greenwich is home of Greenwich Mean time and the Prime Meridian of the World, It is also home to London’s only planetarium the Harrison Timekeepers and the UK’s largest refracting telescope.
Greenwich is a district of South East London, England.
The Greenwich Meridian separates east from west in the same way that the Equator separates north from south. Inextricably linked with Greenwich Mean Time, it also sits at the centre of our system of time zones. Its path is determined by the location of an historic telescope, the Airy Transit Circle, which is housed at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Such is the Meridian’s fame that each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from all around the world make their way to the Observatory to stand astride the Line.
But its position is marked in hundreds of other places too. On its path from pole to pole, the Meridian passes through England, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Ghana and Antarctica.
Definitely, it is worth it to spend one day in Greenwich, there is a lot to see, you can have a nice lunch in a local pub or restaurant, you can have a lovely walk and even a picnic. You can drive there, from central London is about 40 minutes, or you can take a train or bus , but my favourite way of getting there..is by boat, for less than 10 pounds you can take a boat from Westminster pier and you can see London by boat, the journey allows you to get down in Greenwich and then to return at the time that you want.

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