Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:05:59.983Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Where should Captain Scott's support parties have turned back?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2018

Björn Lantz
Björn Lantz*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Captain Robert Falcon Scott's plan for the attempt to reach the South Pole during the Terra Nova Expedition was to use horses, motorised sledges and dog teams to lay depots on the Ross Ice Shelf to advance the effective starting point for the three man-hauling groups to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. His idea was that two of the groups would turn back after two and four weeks, after depositing supplies for the final polar party to rely on during the return journey. In this paper, the logic of the mathematical ‘jeep problem’ is applied to derive the theoretically optimal points at which the support parties should have turned back in order to optimise the relationship between distance and consumption of supplies. The results show that, according to this model, Scott took both his support parties along too far, especially the last support party under Lieutenant E.R.G.R. ‘Teddy’ Evans.

Type
Notes
Information
Polar Record , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 76 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahn, J., & de Weck, O. L. (2010). Mars surface exploration caching from an orbiting logistics depot. Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 47, 690–693.Google Scholar
Amundsen, R. (1913). The South Pole. London: J. Murray.Google Scholar
Bowers, H. R. (1911). Letter to E. Bowers, 21 December 1911. MS 1505 3/5/9. Cambridge: Scott Polar Research Institute.Google Scholar
Bull, C., & Wright, P. F. (Eds.). (1993). Silas: the Antarctic diaries and memoir of Charles S. Wright. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, W., Ding, Y., & Fan, W. (2010). Optimal logistics for multiple jeeps. Acta Mathematica Scientia, 30B, 1429–1439.Google Scholar
Cherry-Garrard, A. (1922). The worst journey in the world (republished 2003). London: Pimlico.Google Scholar
Debenham, F. (1992). The quiet land: the diaries of Frank Debenham. Bluntisham: Bluntisham Press.Google Scholar
Evans, E. R. G. R. (1921). South with Scott. London: Collins Clear-Type Press.Google Scholar
Fine, N. J. (1947). The jeep problem. The American Mathematical Monthly, 54, 24–31.Google Scholar
Gale, D. (1970). The jeep once more or jeeper by the dozen. The American Mathematical Monthly, 77, 493–501.Google Scholar
Giffen, W. J. (2004). Deterministic and stochastic extensions of the jeep problem (PhD thesis). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University.Google Scholar
Hayes, J. G. (1928). Antarctica: a treatise on the southern continent. London: Richards Press.Google Scholar
Holland, C. (1994). McClintock, Sir Francis Leopold. In: Cook, R. & Hamelin, J. (Eds.). Dictionary of Canadian biography, volume XIII (pp. 615–616). Toronto: University of Toronto Press and Les Presses de l'Université Laval.Google Scholar
Huntford, R. (1999). The last place on earth. New York, NY: Modern Library.Google Scholar
May, K., & Airriess, S. (2015). Could Captain Scott have been saved? Cecil Meares and the ‘second journey’ that failed. Polar Record, 51, 260–273.Google Scholar
Scott, R. F. (2008). Journals: Captain Scott's last expedition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, S. (2001). The coldest march: Scott's fatal Antarctic expedition. London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Strathie, A. (2012). Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott's marvel. Stroud: The History Press.Google Scholar
Stroud, M. (1998). The nutritional demands of very prolonged exercise in man. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 57, 55–61.Google Scholar
Thomson, D. (1977). Scott's men. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. (1972). Diary of the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic 1910–1912. New York, NY: Humanities Press.Google Scholar