Longitude
by:
Kate Reading (author)
Dava Sobel (author)
ISBN:
9780736634205 (0736634207)
Publish date: 1996
Publisher: Books on Tape
Edition language: English
TITLE: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time AUTHOR: Dava Sobel DATE PUBLISHED: 2005 FORMAT: Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780802714626 __________________________ DESCRIPTION: "Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known tha...
In the 18th century, plenty of ships were lost at sea due to not knowing their longitude and either going massively off course, or hitting rocks and islands that appeared when sailors had veered off course.The quest to find a means around this led to a large bounty being offered by various heads of ...
A lovely account about timekeeping. I'm easily obsessed with old machines and especially clocks and watches, so, yeah, I like it.
Finding the latitude in the 17th century was straightforward, but finding the longitude was extremely difficult. This compromised the safety of all seafarers, and in one particular incident around 200 lives were lost of the Isles of Scilly.The admiralty of the day decided to set up a Longitude board...
I can't remember if I read the book first or saw the television series first, but some combination of the two was like a long, calm, very safe ocean voyage.
12 years ago
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