Gravity units are a mess. About half of all surveys have their results reported in the c,g,s unit, the mGal, and half in the S.I unit, which differs by a factor of ten. And very few people have any idea of why the Eötvös unit is defined in the way that it is.

There is no doubt that Andrija Mohorovičić deserves to be remembered. The work he did laid the foundations for the use of earthquake waves in understanding the Earth, but brilliance has not always been enough to ensure that a scientist is remembered. His work might easily have been overlooked, or lesser men might have received the credit, but this is one case where the right man has been honoured.

For scientists their late twenties and early thirties are commonly crucial years. They may not do their most important work during them, but it is then that they establish the habits and attitudes that will serve them throughout their careers. Andrija Mohorovičić may not have established a lasting reputation in Bakar, and the work he did there may be largely forgotten, but without Bakar he might never have had a reputation of any sort.

The idea of making global maps of Earth gravity must go back a very long way, but it was really only after artificial satellites began to be tossed into orbit that the dream became any sort of reality. Unfortunately, where Bouguer gravity is concerned, there is still a very long way to go.

‘Is a degree in Physics a necessary prerequisite to argue that an anecdote in history is not well documented (or perhaps even to write history of science)?’

WGM2012 shows that the highest Earth-surface free-air gravity anywhere in the world is about +970 mGal in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in NE Colombia. But there are problems with those values.

In 1819, between the 19th and 25th of May, Louis de Freycinet, with the help of some of his officers from the corvette Uranie, used pendulums to measure gravity in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.

Scepticism is great, and vitally important in any science, but when science itself is under attack, anyone who claims to be a scientist needs to stand up and defend it.

Extremes are now again fashionable in many areas of life. But – extreme gravity? Is there anything to be gained by searching for those points on the Earth’s surface where gravity is highest, lowest, steepest?

In 1819 Louis de Freycinet measured gravity on Guam using four pendulums, and in 1828 Fyodor Litke did the same thing, with just one pendulum. How well did they do?