Longitude
1995
- royal society
- harrison timekeepers
- kendall timekeepers
- lunar distance method
- lunar tables
- chronometer
- gmt
- literature in italian
- history
- biography
The story
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." 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. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, 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, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.
What it’s like
Crisp, unhurried prose with the feel of a well-made narrative nonfiction paperback: the page is clean and the voice is warm, confident and wry, moving easily between scientific argument and the personal stubbornness of a man at his workbench. Its world is wood-panelled rooms of the Royal Society, candlelit observatories, salt-stained ship decks, and the brass gleam and ticking of precision clocks, all rendered in concrete detail rather than period pageantry. Imagine the feel of a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea, the slow satisfaction of watching a stubborn problem get solved one careful step at a time. The pace is measured and steadily building, with short chapters that make it easy to dip in and out. The emotional register is quiet admiration mixed with indignation at injustice, and its central figure is an outsider slowly, painstakingly proving his case against an establishment that doubts him. Violence is absent, and there is no sexual content; the stakes are reputational and human, with the danger of the sea kept at a historical remove. A good fit for readers who enjoy history of science, underdog biographies, and gentle, intelligent nonfiction.
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