Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Paperback)

by Dava Sobel (Author) "Once on a Wednesday excursion when I was a little girl, my father bought me a beaded wire ball that I loved..." (more)
Key Phrases: big sea clocks, lunar distance method, longitude act, Board of Longitude, John Harrison, Royal Society (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The thorniest scientific problem of the eighteenth century was how to determine longitude. Many thousands of lives had been lost at sea over the centuries due to the inability to determine an east-west position. This is the engrossing story of the clockmaker, John "Longitude" Harrison, who solved the problem that Newton and Galileo had failed to conquer, yet claimed only half the promised rich reward.

From Publishers Weekly
While sailors can readily gauge latitude by the height of the sun or guiding stars above the horizon, the measurement of longitude bedeviled navigators for centuries, resulting in untold shipwrecks. Galileo, Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley entreated the moon and stars for help, but their astronomical methods failed. In 1714, England's Parliament offered #20,000 (equivalent to millions of dollars today) to anyone who could solve the problem. Self-educated English clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776) found the answer by inventing a chronometer?a friction-free timepiece, impervious to pitch and roll, temperature and humidity?that would carry the true time from the home port to any destination. But Britain's Board of Longitude, a panel of scientists, naval officers and government officials, favored the astronomers over humble "mechanics" like Harrison, who received only a portion of the prize after decades of struggle. Yet his approach ultimately triumphed, enabling Britannia to rule the waves. In an enthralling gem of a book, former New York Times science reporter Sobel spins an amazing tale of political intrigue, foul play, scientific discovery and personal ambition. BOMC and History Book Club selections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; 1 edition (November 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802713122
• ISBN-13: 978-0802713124
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (269 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #342,010 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simple guy solves enormous problem, October 13, 2002

By	Thomas Stamper (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Paperback)

If you can't get Newton and Galileo to solve your scientific problems, who do you turn to? Well the English government turned to everyone, hoping that some budding scientist could figure out the problem of calculating Longitude at sea. They even offered a huge reward. Why was it important? Without precise longitude, there was no way to steer a ship with any precision. Thus English ships were being wrecked and precious cargo wasn't making its scheduled delivery.

The scientists worked and worked on the problem. Many men including Edmund Halley thought that by mapping the stars, one could use the night sky as a map at sea. Although he knew little about science, a simple clockmaker named John Harrison thought that well-built clock with a dual face would solve the problem. You get to guess which person was right.

Longitude is both a vibrant story of the pains of solving an important problem, and a biography of the man who solved it. I don't tend to read the subject of science all that much, because I find it dry, but not so with this book. Author Dava Sobel lends an understanding of the human element in science. That Harrison has to fight snobbery first and later jealousy demonstrates how ego and self-importance can get in the way of the most important problems facing human beings. Not only will you learn how average people can solve enormous tasks, but you'll nod as the familiar self-promoters try to take the credit.

71 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Beach or Airplane Book, June 30, 2002

By	Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Paperback)

This is a highly readable little book, and I recommend it, with a few caveats.

Sobel presents her material logically and lucidly. She is a good prose stylist and is obviously an accomplished reporter. This book, however, feels like what it is: a series of articles stretched out a little to accomodate a best-seller format. The story is an intriguing one. An 18th century inventor rises from obscurity and against great odds and bias, produces an instrument that will prove of enormous benefit to his country and to humankind.

Just don't go into the reading of this book expecting great historical writing. Sobel acknowledges in a postscript that she doesn't include footnotes "because this book is intended as a popular account, not a scholarly study...". She has culled her research, for the most part, from interviewing historians, attending a seminar, and visiting various sites in England. At least she is forthright about her methodology, so she won't have to face the gauntlet that Kearns-Goodwin and Ambrose have recently had to run (mixed metaphor?).

Another minor irritation arises from the fact that one of the prominent blurbs one finds when opening the book comes from Diane Ackerman, whom Sobel later indentifies in her list of acknowledgments as her "dear friend." Again, at least she's being transparent about it, but it still strikes me as a bit disingenuous.

To her credit, Sobel does include a rather comprehensive bibliography, so those who want to further investigate Harrison's achievement are well guided.

Longitude is a good, quick summer read. For those who want some pith with their punch, however, I would recommend the A&E Sturridge video or CD adapted from this work.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scientist as Hero, July 4, 2000

By	Jason Lockwood (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (Paperback)

In the early 18th century, one of greatest scientific problems was calculating longitude on the high seas. At the time, navigators had two choices, both treacherous. They either traveled well-known routes, thus opening them to the threat of pirate attacks, or they used imprecise navigational methods to avoid that danger. But the latter method presented its own problems: it was more deadly because ships often got lost at sea or ran aground. Many sailors lost their lives and vast fortunes were dashed as ships crashed into rocks.

The problem was so serious that the English Parliament passed the Longitude Act in 1714. The Act established a panel of judges to study the problem and announced a prize of £20,000 (worth millions of dollars today) to anyone who could determine longitude accurately.

Enter John Harrison, a self-educated amateur clockmaker from Yorkshire. He believed that the solution lay in time, not in the heavens, as the scientific establishment had postulated. Harrison devoted his entire life to the pursuit of the longitude prize, all the while battling university scholars who thought him an incompetent crank.

In Longitude, author Dava Sobel tells Harrison's story with vigor and insight. It is clear that she greatly admires Harrison's genius and determination. She describes how he "went from...humble beginnings to riches by virtue of his own inventiveness and diligence, in the manner of Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin."

Throughout Harrison's illustrious career, he invented a number of innovative techniques for keeping accurate time-and solved many problems that had plagued clockmakers for centuries. Sobel writes: "Most pendulums of Harrison's day expanded with heat, so they grew longer and ticked out time more slowly in hot weather. When cold made them contract, they speeded up the seconds, and threw the clock's rate off in the opposite direction." Harrison solved this by "combining long and short strips of two different metals-brass and steel-in one pendulum..." Another invention of Harrison's was caged ball bearings, which are still used today.

Harrison did eventually win the longitude prize, but not until he was in his late 70s. The debate over the way longitude would be found raged on throughout his many trials over the decades between the 1720s and the 1770s. He submitted two clocks to the Longitude Board between 1737 and 1741 (named H1 and H2), but spent nearly twenty years perfecting H3, which he finally submitted in 1769. During this time, a rival 40 years younger than Harrison, the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, insisted that the lunar distance method was the way that longitude was to be found. Sobel makes clear that Maskelyne, while a foe to Harrison, was not exactly a villain. Rather he was more like an anti-hero. While Harrison's method eventually won out, Maskelyne did make many important contributions to the science of astronomy. Sobel is objective enough to give credit where credit is due.

Longitude is written in a breezy, easy-to-read style. Sobel tells her tale chronologically, providing the essentials of the struggle while maintaining the historical context. She describes the painstaking observations and integrations that Harrison had to make in order to create his famous clocks. The solitary years he spent in his workshop focusing on his central goal is an inspiration to behold, particularly in an age like ours, where the individual is often looked upon with derision and contempt.

Because Longitude is a popular account, there are few technical details. For the most part, this lack of detail does not detract from the book, but occasionally the lack of technical description confuses the reader. For example, Sobel does not explain how one determines local time on a moving ship. Nevertheless, this flaw does not detract from the overall value of the book. Sobel tells her tale well and brims with enthusiasm for John Harrison and his wonderful invention that solved a centuries-long obstacle to safe navigation on the high seas. At the end of the book, Sobel touchingly describes her reaction to seeing Harrison's clocks for the first time. "Coming face-to-face with these machines at last-after having read countless accounts of their construction and trial, after having seen every detail of their insides and outsides in still and moving pictures-reduced me to tears."