Revolutionizing navigation from "summary" of Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
The concept of revolutionizing navigation was a bold and audacious idea that captured the imagination of many in the 18th century. The ability to accurately determine one's position at sea was a matter of life and death for sailors, yet for centuries, the problem of longitude remained unsolved. Ships would often go off course, leading to shipwrecks and lost lives. The prevailing method of navigation at the time relied on the use of celestial observations, such as the position of the stars and the sun, to calculate latitude. However, determining longitude was a much more challenging task, as it required a precise measurement of time. Without an accurate clock, sailors had no way of knowing their exact position relative to the prime meridian. Enter John Harrison, a self-taught clockmaker with a passion for solving the problem of longitude. Harrison believed that the key to revolutionizing navigation lay in creating a timepiece that could keep accurate time at sea. He...
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