Longitude
By, Sobel, Dava
Publisher: Walker & Company
Class No.: 526.6209 SOB
Accession No.: 025003
Year: 2005
Pages: 184 p.

 

Sobel presents the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of John Harrison's 40-year obsession with building the perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer.

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.

Dava Sobel is the bestselling author of "Longitude," "Galileo's Daughter," and "The Planets," coauthor of "The Illustrated Longitude," and editor of "Letters to Father." She lives in East Hampton, New York.