Longitude by Dava Sobel

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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A very interesting book about the quest to find a practical and accurate way to determine a ship’s longitude at sea.

I saw the movie on A&E and, in contrast to the book, the movie left me with the impression that the Longitude Board confounded Harrison’s quest for the perfect timepiece from the very beginning.

They did not.

They, in fact, encouraged his efforts early on and were ready to accept one of his early prototypes as the winner. It was Harrison himself who took that model back to the drawing board because it wasn’t perfect enough for him.

The book was also much less about Harrison himself and much more about the overall scientific search for the longitude.

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.