Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
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Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day and had been for centuries.The quest for a solution has occupied scientists for the better part of two centuries when, in 1714, England's Parliament upped the ante by offering a king's ransom to anyone whose method or device proved successful. One man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land.LONGITUDE is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest, and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking. Through Dava Sobel's consummate skill, LONGITUDE opens many new windows on our world."The marine chronometer is a glorious and fascinating... New York Times This is a gem of a book.
Acknowledgmentsvii1.Imaginary Lines12.The Sea Before Time113.Adrift in a Clockwork Universe214.Time in a Bottle345.Powder of Sympathy416.The Prize517.Cogmaker's Journal618.The Grasshopper Goes to Sea749.Hands on Heaven's Clock8810.The Diamond Timekeeper10011.Trial by Fire and Water11112.A Tale of Two Portraits12613.The Second Voyage of Captain James Cook13814.The Mass Production of Genius15215.In the Meridian Courtyard165Sources177Index181
