|
Product Description
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem."
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.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
- Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who Mapped the World's Oceans
- A Short History of Scientific Thought
- A Brief History of Mathematical Thought
- Longitude, Time, and Navigation: 2nd edition
- Systems Thinking Basics: From Concepts to Causal Loops (Pegasus Workbook Series)
- Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
- Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
- The Planets
- The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
*If this is not the "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link. Details were last updated on Dec 25, 2024 13:21 +08.