Let me put this in Bronsonese.
First, by yaself a big ol' beach ball.
Next, by yaself a big ol' ball a string an sum sizzers an sum Scotch, er uh, dat iz Scotch tape.
Play aroun wid da ball and da string stuk to da ball to see how things werk.
DO NOT TRY TO USE THUMTAX INSTED A STRING
I agree. I have had some Graduate level Geodesy classes. They are not "fun".
Here is a pretty good light hearted Geodesy text though, that, along with GPS for Land Surveyors as already recommended.
And another great text:
These will give you all you would need as a practicing Land Surveyor
Thomas Herring earned two degrees in surveying before earning a Ph.D. at MIT
EAPSWEB.MIT.EDU He edited the Geodesy volume for the Treatise on Geophysics series:
ELSEVIER.COM
i really enjoyed his Navigation course which is part of the OpenCourseWar project.
@geeoddmike "OpenCourseWar" in your comment had me scratching my head for a moment. Then I read the text in the link....
No problem. One of my superpowers is finding spelling errors by others. Yet I somewhat consistently produce verbiage in texts, emails, documents, etc. with spelling errors that somehow are missed by my eagle eye....
Perhaps my superpower is not so super....
Have a great day!
I used the text below for an undergraduate course on geodesy. I considered it to be a gentle introduction to the science. Nary a triple integral...
In addition, you might review some of the links here:
I recommend The Ohio State, New Brunswick and Calgary University web sites which have lecture notes available for free download.
I really enjoyed the Strang/Borre text: “Linear Algebra, Geodesy and GPS” now out of print. Prof Kai Borre developed a series of Matlab scripts in support of the text. They should be in the “Links” link. BTW, there is a digital version of this text available as a Kindle ebook. DO NOT buy it as it is a real mess. It looks like someone cut out the pages threw them in the air and created the ebook in random order. See the reviews on the Amazon site.
@geeoddmike Shortly after the Strang & Borre book came out, I bought my copy from Prof Strang, standing at his house’s front door. 😊
Working in gravity and magnetic surveys for 5 or so years kinda warped my brain and changed the perspective of how I viewed and how I could view the world around me.
You'll be pleased with the results of the effort to learn more about geodesy Travis, even if you don't end up liking the process of getting there....
Besides....look at all the cool matrices and weirdly shaped eyeball versions of the earth!
Best part of that is it isn't weird it's real.
Unless you go flat earth that is..... 😎 🤨
I liked this paper by another Aussie (though English) Professor, Will Featherstone, on differences between geophysical and geodetic studies.
Wow, what a long link...
no kidding!
it stalled though....
Token was not provided. Please go back to the article page and click the PDF link again.
:(
article comes up on my system using Google search “geophysics v geodetic featherstone”
