TPO 28

In this set of materials, the reading and the lecture discuss the claim of Robert E Peary that reached the North Pole. Although the passage provides three theories for supporting Robert's claim, the speaker refutes all of the arguments through several reasons, which I will describe in this report.

First, the passage points out that the National Geographic Society sent a committee to the North Pole for searching about the Robert claim's, and they proved that Robert had reached the North Pole. The lecture, in contrast, rejects this by claiming that the committee of the National Geographic Society was Robert's close friends, and they give a lot of money for searching about it. She adds that searching for Robert's claim was only two days, and the committee could not finding and recording practical things. So, the committee was not trustworthy.

Furthermore, unlike the reading passage, which states that Tom Avery's recent journey to the north in less than 37 days supports Peary’s claim, the professor argues that many differences exist between Tom and Robert journey. They indeed used the same sledge, but the travel's conditions are different. Tom carried much less weight because he did not carry his food was brought to him every day by helicopter. Also, the weather condition was favorable when Tom reached the North Pole. So, we cannot compare these two journeys.

Finally, although the passage says that measured shadow angles in Peary's pictures from his journey confirm that he reached the North Pole, the speaker disagrees by mentioning pictures of the Robert journey had taken by a primitive camera, and they are not clarified. Also, the shadows in the pictures have become blurred. So, because of fuzzy and faded pictures, the position of the sun cannot measure.