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Longitude

The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time

By Dava Sobel

(44)

| Paperback | 9781857025712

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Book Description

An exciting scientific adventure from the days of wooden ships and iron men, Longitude is full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd. It is also a captivating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.

For centuries, the determination of longitude was thoughContinue

An exciting scientific adventure from the days of wooden ships and iron men, Longitude is full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd. It is also a captivating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.

For centuries, the determination of longitude was thought to be an impossibility. 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.

The quest for a solution had occupied scientists for the better part of two centuries when, in 1714, England's Parliament upped the ante by offering a king's ransom -- £20,000, or about $12,000,000 in today's currency -- to anyone whose method or device proved successful. Countless quacks weighed in with preposterous suggestions.

Then one man -- an unschooled woodworker named 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.

Critics

  • The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time By Dava Sobel and William J.H. Andrewes

    Because sequels and adaptations infest publishing as they do movie-making, please note that The Illustrated Longitude is neither. It consists of Dava Sobel's original text, this time swaddled in 178 illustrations intended to supplement Sobel's prose ... (read full critics)

    bookpage published on Sat, 18 Sep 2010

  • Our Trusty Friend the Watch

    The curious Lilliputians guessed Gulliver’s pocket-watch must be ‘the God that he worships’, because ‘he assured us he seldom did anything without consulting it.’ The giant King of Brobdingnag had a different perspective: Gulliver must ‘be a piece of ... (read full critics)

    lrb published on Sun, 5 Sep 2010

8 Reviews

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  • 1 person find this helpful

    Longitude

    A short little history of the various attempts to solve the longitude problem. I have encountered this same story briefly before in a book I read last year, The Mapmakers by by John Noble Wilford, but this book focuses more exclusively on John Harrison and his battle for getting his highly accurate ... (continue)

    A short little history of the various attempts to solve the longitude problem. I have encountered this same story briefly before in a book I read last year, The Mapmakers by by John Noble Wilford, but this book focuses more exclusively on John Harrison and his battle for getting his highly accurate chronometers accepted by the English Parliament as an acceptable method for determining longitude.

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    Readingrat said on Dec 5, 2008 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    Can't remember if I saw the tv doc first or after reading this, but the book tells about a man with a passion in life. A passion for the finest mechanisms and in finding ways to make them work to keep time. The best about the book is the portrait of Harrison who continues to work on his clocks despi ... (continue)

    Can't remember if I saw the tv doc first or after reading this, but the book tells about a man with a passion in life. A passion for the finest mechanisms and in finding ways to make them work to keep time. The best about the book is the portrait of Harrison who continues to work on his clocks despite all the injustice done to them. And then there is all the talk about the science of the day: from the lunar observation chair and the powder of sympathy, to the interesting characters of science in those days, up to and including the king, who did some science in his spare time as well!

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    xpro said on Jun 1, 2008 | Add your feedback

  • It's actually quite good, except I wasn't interested in the subject

    Astronomers versus horolgists, a theoretical vs a practical apporach to determining longitude.

    I guess it addresses a reader that is more interested than me in these matters, so I found it a little boring.

    Come to think of it, I didn't buy the book. It was a gift.

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    fran_ces said on Jul 28, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • One of those books I didn't think I'd really like, but turned out to be a delightful surprise.

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    SWReader said on Oct 25, 2009 | 1 feedback

  • Exceptionally good book. Truly fascinating from start to finish. To realise that this dramatic story is not fiction - but fact - is mind blowing. The opening scenes detailing the destruction of Sir Cloudisley Shovell's fleet, in fog, on the Scilly Isles, after a victorious battle with the French in ... (continue)

    Exceptionally good book. Truly fascinating from start to finish. To realise that this dramatic story is not fiction - but fact - is mind blowing. The opening scenes detailing the destruction of Sir Cloudisley Shovell's fleet, in fog, on the Scilly Isles, after a victorious battle with the French in the Mediterranean is certainly better than fiction. This dramatic account sets the scene for John Harrison to be introduced and what follows records the personal battle he had to build his perfect 'time-piece' and the in-fighting that took place by other to try and rob him of the prize.

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    GraJon said on Mar 15, 2009 | Add your feedback

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