Harrison developed the first chronometer, a clock which kept accuracy to within seconds under harsh maritime conditions.

I knew the gist of the John Harrison story prior to reading Longitude, but Dava Sobel goes beyond the accomplishments of this single man and charts the course of the problem, and all its proposed solutions. Lavishly produced with over 200 illustrations, The Illustrated Longitude has much new material to help the reader learn more of John Harrison’s extraordinary story and his times.But to feel so is to reckon without her remarkable ability to tell a story with clarity and perfect pacing. And so each hour's time difference between the ship and starting point marks a progress of fifteen degrees of longitude to the east or west. Also astonishing, but less meritorious, are the lengths to which men driven by greed and personal ambition will go – thinking of Neville Maskelyne, in particular, although the same aphorism applies just as much now as it did in Harrison’s time. In fact, he built a clock entirely out of wood, a clock that required no lubrication owing to the way he had constructed it and the type of wood he had used. Without Harrison and his chronometers, Great Britain would not have had the success it did in establishing and maintaining its empire, making one British astronomer’s personal vendetta against Harrison and his chronometers all the more damning.

For centuries, thinkers have understood that the answer was measuring time, and eventually two possible solutions emerged.There are a few more examples of how ships lost their way and wrecked or lost crew to scurvy because they were unable to get their own coordinates. More than a simple puzzle that made academics scratch their heads, the problem of longitude affected society and the economy.

There are biographical articles on all the major characters added; boxed information on the important scientific, nautical, historical and artistic background to the extraordinary story, time lines, and diagrams to explain the geography, horology and astrology of the Longitude problem. Thanks to GPS, we can forget that calculating longitude without the help of a network of satellites is difficult and requires great mathematical and engineering expertise. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.This is a book about a self-taught village clock-maker who created a whole new breed of amazingly precise chronometers, which enable the accurate measurement of longitude, and the fight he had with astronomers to get his solution recognised (and rewarded). One degree of longitude equals four minutes of time the world over, although in terms of distance, one degree shrinks from 60. Harrison felt his chief nemesis was Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, a strong advocate of the astronomical method.