Longitude

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Roughly one-quarter of the many letters I received after the publication of Longitudecomplained that the book contained no pictures, maps, or diagrams. This loudly expressed interest in illustrations led to The Illustrated Longitude, published simultaneously in England and the United States in 1998, with 180 images selected and captioned by my co-author, William J. H. Andrewes. As organizer of the original “Longitude Symposium” at Harvard in 1993, Will had edited and illustrated The Quest for Longitude, which contained the complete text of all the technical papers delivered at that three-day event, plus pictures galore. 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. She sets up a context against which the true scope and power of Harrison’s achievement might be measured. As I explained above, the general solution to calculating longitude was long in evidence, but no one could think of a way to effect it. Galileo had some good ideas related to his observations of Jupiter’s moon, but they were hardly practical for marine navigation. Later, Newton and other English scientists were convinced that astronomy held the key to calculating longitude—and the king agreed with them, establishing the Royal Observatory for the purpose of cataloguing the stars. More than a simple puzzle that made academics scratch their heads, the problem of longitude affected society and the economy. It drove scientific inquiry and technological innovation. Watching this unfold through Sobel’s storytelling is breathtaking and inspiring. Over time other ladies joined the group, thanks to the director’s farsighted hiring practices and the introduction of photography to astronomy. Instead of observing through the telescope by night, the women could analyze the stars in daylight on glass photographic plates. Harvard's female workforce grew accordingly, and its individual members won national and international acclaim for their discoveries. Brown, Helen (October 11, 2011). "Review: A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos by Dava Sobel". The Telegraph. distance method, even though such calculations took over four hours to complete and were highly vulnerable to error. As Ms. Sobel tells of Harrison's struggles, one wants to hiss the royal astronomers who went so far as to sabotage

From January through March 2006, Ms. Sobel served as the Robert Vare Non-fiction Writer in Residence at the University of Chicago, where she taught a seminar in science writing while pursuing research for her stage play about sixteenth-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, called "And the Sun Stood Still." Her play was commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club through the Alfred P. Sloan Initiative, and was also supported by a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Lecture engagements have taken Ms. Sobel to speak at The Smithsonian Institution, The Explorers' Club, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The New York Public Library, The Hayden Planetarium, the U. S. Naval Observatory, The Royal Geographical Society (London), and the American Academy in Rome. She has been a frequent guest on National Public Radio programs, including "All Things Considered," "Fresh Air," "Science Friday," and "The Diane Rheem Show." Her television appearances include C-SPAN's "Booknotes" and "TODAY" on NBC.Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_module_version 0.0.5 Ocr_parameters -l eng Openlibrary OL11209442M Openlibrary_edition A 1964 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Ms. Sobel attended Antioch College and the City College of New York before receiving her bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1969. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from the University of Bath, in England, and Middlebury College, Vermont, both awarded in 2002. In December 2015, she is to receive an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of Bern, Switzerland. Re-reading this now, many of the details and events in the story remain as compelling as they were ten years ago. Longitude is a tremendous tale of battling scientists and the perseverance of hard work, brilliance, and humility through political intrigue and greed.

This link shows John Harrison's first submission for consideration. Completed in 1735, the H1 weighed 75 pounds and was housed in a 4' x 4' x 4' case. Arthritis: What Works; Revolutionary Healing Approaches From An Unprecedented Nationwide Survey Of People With Arthritis. St. Martin's Press. 1992.

Reviews

me, and the which had like to have occasioned me to become rough too; but however we got the ice broke . . . and indeed he became as at last vastly surprised at the thoughts or methods I had taken.'' One need look no further than the list of stellar minds that were applied to the problem (and failed to find the solution) - Tycho Brahe, Christian Huygens, Robert Cooke, Edmund Halley, Galileo and Vincenzo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren - to appreciate the almost insurmountable difficulty that this issue presented to the navigators of the day. Longitude is a sheer delight of a popular history of technology. Up until the 18th century, half of navigation was done by chance. Finding latitude is easy, simply take the angle between the horizon of the sun at noon or Polaris at night, adjust for the date, and you know where you are relative to the equator. But longitude is a different matter. Ships wandered in the great oceans, crews riddled with scurvy, or crashed into rising cliffs. The British government offered a prize of 20,000 Pounds, equivalent to millions of dollars today, for a solution to the longitude problem. Meanwhile, finding longitude was ridiculed as an impossible quest, on par with perpetual motion and squaring the circle. Dutton's Navigation and Piloting, 12th edition. G.D. Dunlap and H.H. Shufeldt, eds. Naval Institute Press 1972, ISBN 0-87021-163-3 irst, is everyone clear on the difference between longitude and latitude? In her elegant history, ''Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-03-01 15:04:58 Boxid IA178901 Boxid_2 CH100801 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Containerid_2 X0001 Donor Ms. Sobel’s own play, “And the Sun Stood Still,” was performed by the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, Colorado, in March and April 2014, with grant support from the National Endowment for the Arts. A radio play version has been recorded and distributed by L.A. Theater Works.Before the 18th century, ocean navigators could not find an accurate way of determining longitude. A practical solution came from a gifted carpenter, John Harrison, who solved one of the most difficult problems of his time by creating an accurate chronometer. The best scientists of the time, including Sir Isaac Newton, thought it impossible. Harrison spent four decades perfecting a watch that would earn him compensation from Parliament and longitude rewards thanks to the recognition and influence of King George III of Great Britain. friendsofthesanfranciscopubliclibrary Edition 1. publ. in the United States of America. External-identifier Dava Sobel is an accomplished writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. A 1964 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Ms. Sobel attended Antioch College and the City College of New York before receiving her bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1969. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from the University of Bath, in England, and Middlebury College, Vermont, both awarded in 2002. The British Parliament, in its famed Longitude Act of 1714, set the highest bounty of all, naming a prize equal to a king’s ransom (several million dollars in today’s currency) for a “Practicable and Useful” means of determining longitude.” American Library Association Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners, Science and Technology, 2004 [11]

A long-time science contributor to Harvard Magazine, Audubon, Discover, Life, Omni, and The New Yorker, she continues to write for several on-line and print publications. The Discovery of the Longitude is of such Consequence to Great Britain for the safety of the Navy and Merchant Ships as well as for the improvement of Trade that for want thereof many Ships have been retarded in their voyages, and many lost..." and announced the Longitude Prize "for such person or persons as shall discover the Longitude." I take GPS for granted. I don’t use it that much personally, because I don’t tend to go anywhere, but I’m sure all this technology I love to use makes use of GPS. 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. GPS might not be great at giving directions, but that doesn’t mean you’re lost.The PBS science program "NOVA" produced a television documentary called "Lost At Sea — The Search for Longitude," which was based on Ms. Sobel's book. Granada Films of England created a dramatic version of the story, "Longitude," starring Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon, which aired on A&E as a four-hour made-for-TV movie. A two-hour "NOVA" documentary based on Galileo's Daughter, called "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens," first aired on public television in October 2002, and won an Emmy in the category of historical programming. Sobel was born in The Bronx, New York City. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Binghamton University. She wrote Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time in 1995. The story was made into a television movie, of the same name by Charles Sturridge and Granada Film in 1999, and was shown in the United States by A&E. Eventually his son, William, appealed to King George III, who reportedly muttered under his breath, ''These people have been cruelly treated,'' and said aloud to William, ''By God, Harrison, I will see you righted.'' The prizes were to be awarded to the first person to demonstrate a practical method for determining the longitude of a ship at sea. Each prize, in increasing amounts, was for solutions of increasing accuracy. These prizes, worth millions of dollars in today's currency, motivated many to search for a solution.