• @crispyflagstones
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    27 days ago

    Sorta. The stade was based on the pous which varied. But not that much, and in ways that are often consistently documented. Around the time Eratosthenes was alive, give or take a couple hundred years, it was documented that 1 Roman mile = 8 stades, which gives us something to go of off. While there are other possible definitions, we do have one that we know is probably closest to whatever Eratosthenes used.

    EDIT - the numbers regarding the error range in this source is likely inaccurate, but goes into the units issue

    https://maa.org/press/periodicals/convergence/eratosthenes-and-the-mystery-of-the-stades-how-long-is-a-stade

    • KillingTimeItself
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      127 days ago

      +/-20% error isn’t terrible on a conversion. The fact that it’s only 10% offset is crazy though.