Trigonometry and Revolution: thoughts about space in the late eighteenth century

In this paper Professor Alan Atkinson will try to pull together two ways of dealing with space and distance in the eighteenth century, focussing especially on the 1780s and ‘90s.  On the one hand there was a keen interest in geometry and its various elaborations, as the ultimate abstraction of the real world.  On the other hand there were new forms of long-distance conversation, a lively interactive geography.  Professor Atkinson wants to ask how these two things came together to change understandings of space.