Customer Reviews

Nova: Lost at Sea the Search for Longitude [VHS]

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This is a well done documentary that is a hybrid of drama with historical fact. Having some of the characters simply speak from their journals sounds unrealistic at times (spoken vs written word) but the technical details are interesting. I watched it to understand the history of navigation and answer some questions about how they performed navigation with various tools. The interesting part of this is how there was a serious political issue involved, in that the scientists of the day insisted that celestial navigation was considered the only reliable method. Well worth viewing to any who are interesting in the history of navigation, clocks, and science vs politics.

Based on the bestselling book Longitude by Dava Sobel, the program tells the story of how an unknown genius, John Harrison, discovered the key to navigating on the open seas and thus solved one of the thorniest problems of the 1700s.