Today’s extract may be of interest to those who have read Dava Sobel’s book “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time.” Sobel’s story is that of the English clockmaker John Harrison, who labored for decades to perfect an accurate chronometer. An accurate chronometer would allow for comparison of a ship’s local time to the time of a second known place, such as Greenwich, England, which in turn would allow for the calculation of the ship’s longitute.
Harrison worked in the hope of winning a prize set by the British government for a solution to the problem of calculating longitute. The contest was open to anyone and can be seen as an early example of crowdsourcing.
Sobel’s book, by the way, is a highly readable popular history of the problem and Harrison’s attempts to solve it.
The entry below appeared after it had been shown that accurate chronometers could be produced and applied to the longitude problem.
(under Naval Anecdoes)
CHRONOMETRICAL REGULATION.
MR. JAMISON, time-piece-maker to the Commissioners of the Navy, has invented a machine, whereby the error of a time-keeper may be ascertained at Sea without observation. The great purpose of this invention is to prove whether the chronometer of a watch has varied from its given rate at the Royal Observatory, or any other place, the situation of which is known, so that the navigator will have the same advantage of comparison as he would by a regulator on shore.
XIII, 50
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