International cooperation on a geodetic project

Abstract

The term “cooperation” is one of the most satisfying and comprehensive words in the English language. If we were to have complete cooperation in all matters between individuals and nations, the acme of human aspiration would be reached; selfishness would be abandoned; universal peace would be a fact; the millenium would be at hand. Unfortunately, human nature and human reactions are such that progress toward the attainment of this perfection in human relations is dishearteningly slow. In fact, it appears at times that progress gives way to retrogression in the political and economic fields ‐ not so, in the scientific.We in the field of geodesy may well take pride in the fact that since the end of World War II there has been a very high degree of international cooperation, particularly in the Americas and in Western Europe. In the Americas, this cooperation has been extensive along the lines of geodetic field operations, exchange of ideas, methods, and instrumental equipment, and in computational work. In Western Europe, where almost complete coverage of highly accurate geodetic field surveys has been an accomplished fact for many years, international cooperation has taken the form principally of a highly complex least‐squares adjustment of a network of first‐order triangulation, covering the entire western area of the European Continent, along with a portion of northwest Africa. Twelve nations have worked together on this project.