"Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland"
Wait how is this possible?
Wait how is this possible?
I found on google:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-24-me-49796...
Interestingly similar phrase:
> Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland, but not across a wide region in between.
> Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland, but not in wide areas of northern England.
Searching the exact phrase
> "Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland"
Turned up a couple sites, one from the national academies press
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25226/chapter/3
but it appears in a "background" section of a work on highway engineering, not cited.
The other sites seemed like maybe sketchy textbook sharing sites, so I didn't check them out.
Seems like maybe a popular bit of questionable trivia?
It’s possible for a bird to fly in a straight line from London to Scotland without flying over northern England.
That line of flight would go over the Irish Sea instead of north England. Sound traveling over water faces fewer obstructions.
London -> Liverpool is 178 miles. Liverpool -> Kirkcudbright 107 (over water!)
Total 285 miles, 107 of which are over water, and none over northern England.
Ceremonial artillery doesn't fire projectiles, just propellant charges, so it seems implausible that it could be heard at those distances.
> "Guns fired at the funeral of Queen Victoria in London in 1901 were heard in Scotland"