“The clock that solved the Longitude Problem” by Adrian Hon
The art of longitude
Ethan Zuckerman posted “Clifford Ross is trying to find the longitude” today, a fascinating story of invention, time, and the art of longitude:
Clifford Ross is an artist who has found himself becoming an inventor. His talk, “Finding the Latitude - The Art of Invention, the Invention of Art”, begins with the history of the naval chronometer. Ross tells us his hero was John Harrison, who won the 20,000 pound ($20 million in current dollars) prize offered by King Charles the II in the 1714 Longitude Act.
“Greenwich Park LASER” by zimpenfish
Finding Time
Harrison was an uneducated carpenter who lived ourside of London. He built a grandfather clock entirely our of wood - for fun - in 1718, and took on the challege of the shipboard chronometer in 1730, completing his first clock - commonly called H1 - in 1735. It was an immense technical challenge - a clock that could keep time accurately on a moving ship, through extremes of temperature and humidity.
And this precious tidbit:
Ross notes that “finding the Longitude” became a catchphrase for the pursuits of fools and lunatics.
