Timekeeping proved to be the key to determining longitude from "summary" of Longitude by Dava Sobel
Longitude at sea had always been the elusive prize, the Holy Grail of navigation. Sailors could easily find their latitude by measuring the angle between the horizon and the North Star. However, the longitude remained a mystery, as it required knowing the time difference between the ship's location and a known reference point, such as the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England. For centuries, astronomers and scientists struggled to develop a method to accurately determine longitude. Many ideas were proposed, from observing celestial events to measuring the distance between the moon and the stars. However, all these methods proved to be impractical, inaccurate, or unreliable. It wasn't until the clockmaker John Harrison came along that a solution to the longitude problem seemed within reach. Harrison believed that the key to determining longitude lay in accurate timekeeping. By creating a clock that could keep precise time at sea despite the rocking and rolling of the ship, sailors could comp...
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