Measuring the geoid. What is the geoid?
During my weekly fitness session with one of my friends, we started discussing gravity (yes, also my friends are geeks (in the good way)). We discussed the measurements done by Vening Meinesz in the K18. He used I pendulum device, that directly measures the downward gravity attraction in the location of the device, plus all the motions of the device itself. On land, these motion are negligible, but on sea the device swings a lot due the ocean waves. Therefore, Vening Meinesz used a submarine to reduce the motions of the measurement device (waves are dampened underwater). Furthermore, he used three pendulums instead of one, which he ingeniously used to separate the motions of the device and the gravity attraction. Explaining this all to my friend, he remarked that it sounded very complicated and asked me if this could be done more easy. "Yes, this is possible", I replied, "with a GPS receiver". "How is it possible to measure Earth's gravity field with a GPS...