YOUNGSTOWN Stringing together ideas yields method of measuring the earth

YOUNGSTOWN -- A globe, a piece of string and an Internet connection wouldn't add up to much in the hands of most regular folks.
But no one ever used the term regular to describe Youngstown State University physics students Snowflake Kicovic and Loren Webb.
Kicovic, of Hubbard, and Webb, of Youngstown, have teamed up with Michael Crescimanno, YSU associate professor of theoretical physics, to develop a first-of-its-kind way to measure the size of the earth.
"Our goal in doing this project was to make physics come alive through everyday, ordinary things," Crescimanno said. "It's a fun, simple schoolhouse exercise, but it helps diffuse some of the mystery and apprehension about physics in students' minds."
How it works
That's where the Internet, the globe and the piece of string come in.
By measuring the time it takes data to travel a certain distance via the Internet, then using a string stretched across a regular globe, the trio calculated the diameter of the Earth.
It's the first time, Crescimanno said, that the Internet has been used to measure the Earth.
"It's caught the imagination; it's such a simple idea," Kicovic said. "Dr. Crescimanno introduced us to the project since it was research we wanted to do, and it clicked for us and motivated us to pursue it."
Crescimanno, Kicovic, Webb and their new-fangled measuring method received acclaim recently in three national magazines: New Scientist Magazine; Mercury, a monthly magazine published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific; and American Scientist, the magazine of Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Society).
Articles about the project also appear in Germany's CT Magazine. The Association for Computer Machines also has acknowledged the team's work, and Kicovic recently talked about the project at a meeting hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Crescimanno, Kicovic and Webb are next pursuing ways to use the Internet and apply Albert Einstein's relativity theory to derive the Earth's rotation rate on its axis.