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Summary
Summary
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.
The scientific establishment of Europe--from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton--had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, 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. 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.
Author Notes
Dava Sobel was born in the Bronx, New York on June 15, 1947. She received a B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1969. She is a former New York Times science reporter and has contributed articles to Audubon, Discover, Life, Harvard Magazine, and The New Yorker.
She has written several science related books including Letters to Father, The Planets, and A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love won the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology and a 2000 Christopher Award. She has co-authored six books with astronomer Frank Drake including Is Anyone Out There? She also co-authored with William J. H. Andrewes The Illustrated Longitude.
Because her work provides awareness of science and technology to the general public, she has received the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board in 2001, the Bradford Washburn Award in 2001,the Klumpke-Roberts Award in 2008, and the Eduard Rhein Foundation in Germany in 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This look at the scientific quest to find a way for ships at sea to determine their longitude was a PW bestseller for eight weeks. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In the 1700s navigators could easily compute latitude, but finding longitude was nigh impossible. So valuable was a solution in terms of saving ships from fetching on rocks that England offered a munificent prize for a practicable method, and soon two avenues offered themselves. An accurate chronometer occupied the thoughts of clockmaker John Harrison, and a tediously compiled catalog of the stars, against which the moon could be used as a "clock," was pursued by astronomers. Sobel presents the contest's course with a stylish mix of technical and human insight that emphasizes Harrison's life and dealings with the stingy Board of Longitude, custodian of the prize. When his contraption, the fruit of decades of solitary labor, went to sea and seemingly met the requirements, the Board balked, not least because one of its members was the very astronomer working on the celestial method. His glory dimmed by raw rivalry, Harrison fell into obscurity, and his chronometers into disrepair until restored 60 years ago. Completing the rehabilitation, Sobel's is an exquisitely told tale of perseverance, disappointment, and vindication. --Gilbert Taylor
Choice Review
Throughout history, untold numbers of mariners died because they had no idea of just where they were located on Earth's oceans. Latitude, the position of a ship north or south of the equator, was well established by astronomical means. The determination of longitude, the hypothetical lines crossing the planet from north to south pole, was beyond the skills of early mariners, and the loss of countless ships was the tragic consequence. In 1707, five ships of the British navy smashed into the Scilly Isles with a loss of 2,000 lives; as a result, Parliament established the Longitude Board in 1714. Its mission was to find a true means of establishing longitude and a princely reward was offered, amounting to the present-day equivalent of several million dollars. John Harrison, a self-taught clockmaker, set out in 1721 to make a clock or chronometer that would keep exact time at sea no matter what the weather. Harrison realized that if his clock would tell a ship's navigator the exact time in Greenwich, England, comparison to local time would give the ship's position east or west. His 1759 device weighed only three pounds and kept an unheard-of accuracy of two minutes on a voyage to Jamaica lasting many months. Despite this achievement, Harrison was denied the prize for years because of rivalry and opposition from the head of the Greenwich observatory, who wanted the longitude solution to be found in the motions of the Moon and stars. Sobel's absorbing history is fascinating, well worth reading. General. C. G. Wood; Eastern Maine Technical College
School Library Journal Review
YAOpening with a chapter that outlines what follows, Sobel whets readers' appetites for hearing the colorful details of the search for a way for mariners to determine longitude. In an age when ships' stores were limited and scurvy killed many a seaman, missing a landfall often meant deathas, of course, did running aground. Sobel provides a lively treatment of the search through the centuries for a ready answer to the longitude problem, either through using lunar tables or through making an accurate clock not subject to the vicissitudes of weather and ocean conditions. Her account includes not only scientific advances, but also the perseverance, pettiness, politics, and interesting anecdotes that figured in along the way (it wasn't limes, for example, that first prevented scurvy on English ships, but sauerkraut). A pleasing mixture of basic science, cultural history, and personality conflicts makes this slim volume a winner.Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The subtitle here tells the reader exactly what the book is about; what it doesn't say is how much fun it is to read. The Greek astronomers could measure latitude as early as the third century B.C., but more than 2,000 years passed before the development of a reliable method for measuring longitude. Former New York Times reporter Sobel (coauthor, Arthritis: What Works, 1989, etc.) sets the stage by recounting the difficulties early navigators had in determining their exact longitude. After the loss of many ships and human lives as a result of navigational errors, in 1714 Parliament offered a rich prize for a practical way to measure longitude at sea. British astronomers saw a solution in the stars, by making sufficiently accurate measurements of lunar positions and comparing them to positions calculated for a known reference point. But the calculations could take hours and were tricky even in the best of circumstances; one future astronomer royal, under pressure, botched a measurement of the longitude of Barbados. Enter John Harrison, an apparently self-taught English clockmaker. Over a period of 40 years, he developed four increasingly precise chronometers capable of holding accurate time over a long, rough sea voyage. Comparing the chronometer's time to local sun time, a navigator could measure longitude with high precision in short order. Despite fierce opposition from astronomers (who scorned a ""mere mechanic""), Harrison's clocks were enthusiastically endorsed by every mariner who put them to the test (including such luminaries as Cook and Bligh). With the support of King George III, the clockmaker eventually prevailed and won the prize. Sobel tells his story (and the larger history of the search for longitude) clearly, entertainingly, and with a fine sense of the era in which it took place. Breezily written and full of fascinating characters and facts, here's a science book as enjoyable as any novel. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
If you've grown up at a time when orbiting satellites were taken for granted, you'd probably not find reading a book about longitude an enticing prospect. But Sobel, an award-winning former science reporter for the New York Times who writes frequently for Audubon, Discover, LIFE, and Omni magazines, has transformed what could have been a dry subject into an interesting tale of scientific discovery. It is difficult to realize that a problem that can now be solved with a couple of cheap watches and a few simple calculations at one time appeared insurmountable. In 1714, the British Parliament offered a king's ransom of £20 million ($12 million in today's currency) to anyone who could solve the problem of how to measure longitude at sea. Sobel recounts clockmaker John Harrison's lifelong struggle to win this prize by developing a timepiece impervious to the pitch and roll of the sea. His clock, known today as the chronometer, was rejected by the Longitude Board, which favored a celestial solution. Despite some awkward writing, this brief, if at times sketchy, book is recommended for popular science collections.James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. vii |
| 1. Imaginary Lines | p. 1 |
| 2. The Sea Before Time | p. 11 |
| 3. Adrift in a Clockwork Universe | p. 21 |
| 4. Time in a Bottle | p. 34 |
| 5. Powder of Sympathy | p. 41 |
| 6. The Prize | p. 51 |
| 7. Cogmaker's Journal | p. 61 |
| 8. The Grasshopper Goes to Sea | p. 74 |
| 9. Hands on Heaven's Clock | p. 88 |
| 10. The Diamond Timekeeper | p. 100 |
| 11. Trial by Fire and Water | p. 111 |
| 12. A Tale of Two Portraits | p. 126 |
| 13. The Second Voyage of Captain James Cook | p. 138 |
| 14. The Mass Production of Genius | p. 152 |
| 15. In the Meridian Courtyard | p. 165 |
| Sources | p. 177 |
| Index | p. 181 |