Longitude by Dava Sobel concerns the invention of what?
"Longitude by chronometer Longitude by chronometer is a method, in navigation, of determining longitude using a marine chronometer, which was developed by John Harrison during the first half of the eighteenth century. It is an astronomical method of calculating the longitude at which a position line, drawn from a sight by sextant of any celestial body, crosses the observer's assumed latitude. In order to calculate the position line, the time of the sight must be known so that the celestial position i.e. the Greenwich Hour Angle (Celestial Longitude - measured in a westerly direction from Greenwich) and Declination (Celestial Latitude"
"Longitude (book) Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time is a best-selling book by Dava Sobel about John Harrison, an 18th-century clockmaker who created the first clock (chronometer) sufficiently accurate to be used to determine longitude at sea—an important development in navigation. The book was made into a television series entitled ""Longitude"". In 1998, ""The Illustrated Longitude"" was published, supplementing the earlier text with 180 images of characters, events, instruments, maps and publications. Determining longitude on land was fairly easy compared to the task at sea. A stable surface to"
"Dava Sobel Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include ""Longitude"", about English clockmaker John Harrison, and ""Galileo's Daughter"", about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste, and ""The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars"". Sobel was born on June 15, 1947, in The Bronx, New York City. She graduated from The Bronx High School of Science and Binghamton University. She wrote """" in 1995. The story was made into a television movie, of the same name by Charles Sturridge and Granada Film"
"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 (although not the prize established by the Longitude Act of 1714) thanks to the recognition and influence of King George III of England. In recognition for ""Longitude"", Sobel was named as a fellow of the American Geographical Society. Longitude (book) Longitude: The True Story of"
"The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time"" became the first popular bestseller on the subject of horology. ""The Illustrated Longitude"", in which Sobel's text was accompanied by 180 images selected by William J. H. Andrewes, appeared in 1998. The book was dramatised for UK television by Charles Sturridge in a Granada Productions film for Channel 4 in 1999, under the title ""Longitude"". It was broadcast in the US later that same year by co-producer A&E. The production starred Michael Gambon as Harrison and Jeremy Irons as Gould. Sobel's book was also"
"2012. The asteroid 30935 Davasobel is named after her. Sobel states she is a chaser of solar eclipses and that ""it's the closest thing to witnessing a miracle"". As of August 2012 she had seen eight, and planned to see the November 2012 total solar eclipse in Australia. Dava Sobel Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include ""Longitude"", about English clockmaker John Harrison, and ""Galileo's Daughter"", about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste, and ""The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars""."
"Oxford Portraits in Science Oxford Portraits in Science is a collection of biographies of famous scientists for young adults edited by the Harvard University astronomer Owen Gingerich. Each book portrays the life and personality of an eminent scientist, and the thought processes by which they made their discoveries. The series is notable as an example of the ""Sobel effect"" - an interest in popular accounts of scientific history and biography, stimulated by the success of the book ""Longitude"" written by journalist Dava Sobel. Some works in this series have also been written by science journalists as well as scientists and"
"science historians. Oxford Portraits in Science Oxford Portraits in Science is a collection of biographies of famous scientists for young adults edited by the Harvard University astronomer Owen Gingerich. Each book portrays the life and personality of an eminent scientist, and the thought processes by which they made their discoveries. The series is notable as an example of the ""Sobel effect"" - an interest in popular accounts of scientific history and biography, stimulated by the success of the book ""Longitude"" written by journalist Dava Sobel. Some works in this series have also been written by science journalists as well as"
"Thomas Mercer Chronometers Thomas Mercer Chronometers is a British company specialising in the design and production of bespoke chronometers. The story begins with John Harrison, as documented in Dava Sobel's book ""Longitude"" and its British television adaptation. So far, ships had been navigating with accuracy only as reards the ship’s north-south position, using the North Star and/or the Southern Cross. Determining the east-west position of a ship and its destination was vital to the Admiralty’s, (and the Government’s), plans for further expansion and empire. It was also necessary to avoid the massive losses in time, money and human life that"
"expedition. The results of his research were published in 1825. They represented the most accurate assessment of the figure of the earth that had ever been made. Not content to rest on his laurels, Sabine conducted further pendulum experiments throughout the 1820s, determining the relative lengths of the second's pendulum in Paris, London, Greenwich, and Altona. Sabine was also drawn into the famous ""longitude problem,"" which was one of the great controversies of the age. Determining one's longitude remained the primary navigational concern at that time. Sabine hoped to devise a simple method of achieving this by measuring minute variations"
"for the discovery of a solution to the problem of the longitude in 1567; Philip III increased the prize in 1598. Holland added to the effort with a prize offered in 1636. Navigators and scientists in most European countries were aware of the problem and were involved in finding the solution. Due to the international effort in solving the problem and the scale of the enterprise, it represents one of the largest scientific endeavours in history. As Dava Sobel explains, ""to know one's longitude at sea, one needs to know what time it is aboard ship and also the time"
"transoceanic travel grew in significance, so did the importance of reliable navigation. This eventually led to the Longitude Act in 1714, which established the Board of Longitude and offered large financial rewards for anyone who could find a method of determining longitude accurately at sea. After many years, the consequence of the Act was that accurate marine chronometers were produced and the lunar distance method was developed, both of which became used throughout the world for navigation at sea. However, it is not certain that the navigational error leading to the wrecking of Admiral Shovell's fleet was purely one of"
"Longitude Longitude (, ), is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ). Meridians (lines running from pole to pole) connect points with the same longitude. By convention, one of these, the Prime Meridian, which passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England, was allocated the position of 0° longitude. The longitude of other places is measured as the angle east or west from the Prime Meridian, ranging from 0° at the Prime Meridian to +180° eastward"
"intended to replace railroad transportation, but did not manage to persuade anyone to give the design serious attention. In 1819, he travelled to England in an attempt to obtain financial backing from the Board of Longitude to build a device to determine longitude at sea. After initial difficulties, he was given an opportunity to address the Board, but his pretentious address, ""On the Longitude"", contained much philosophizing and generalities, but no concrete plans for a working device, and thus failed to gain any support from the Board. He remained for several years in England and, in 1821, published an introductory"
"longitude by lunar distances, together with a description of the reflecting circle (invented by Mayer in 1752), the other on a formula for atmospheric refraction, which applies a remarkably accurate correction for temperature. Mayer left behind him a considerable quantity of manuscript material, part of which was collected by G. C. Lichtenberg and published in one volume (""Opera inedita"", Göttingen, 1775). It contains an easy and accurate method for calculating eclipses, an essay on colour, in which three primary colours are recognized, a catalogue of 998 zodiacal stars, and a memoir, the earliest of any real value, on the proper"
"and duraluminium unavailable to Harrison, had it been built in 1762, the date of Harrison's testing of his H4, and run continuously since then without correction, it would now ( 2019) be slow by just trunc (((+6556507200)*72.338e-9 round 0)/60) minutes and ((+6556507200)*72.338e-9 round 0) % 60 seconds. Guinness World Records has declared the Martin Burgess' Clock B the ""most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air."" In 1995, inspired by a Harvard University symposium on the longitude problem organized by the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, Dava Sobel wrote a book on Harrison's work. ""Longitude:"
"David Gobel David Gobel (born 1952 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American philanthropist, entrepreneur, inventor, and futurist. He is co-founder and CEO of the Methuselah Foundation, CEO of the Methuselah Fund, and the first to publicly advance the idea of longevity escape velocity or actuarial escape velocity. David Gobel is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Methuselah Foundation, a medical charity based in Springfield, VA. To date, Methuselah has given more than $4 million to support research and development in regenerative medicine. With co-founder Aubrey de Grey, Gobel established Methuselah in 2003 in order to ""shed light on the"
"a full syllable, and certain other lengthening and shortening rules (such as correption) can create long or short syllables in contexts where one would expect the opposite. The most important Classical metre is the dactylic hexameter, the metre of Homer and Virgil. This form uses verses of six feet. The word ""dactyl"" comes from the Greek word ""daktylos"" meaning ""finger"", since there is one long part followed by two short stretches. The first four feet are dactyls (""daa-duh-duh""), but can be spondees (""daa-daa""). The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a"
"in 1714. Monarchies in Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands offered financial incentives for solutions to the problem of longitude as early as 1598. Addressing the problem of longitude fell, primarily, into three categories: terrestrial, celestial, and mechanical. This included detailed atlases, lunar charts, and timekeeping mechanisms at sea. It is postulated by scholars that the economic gains and political power to be had in oceanic exploration, and not scientific and technological curiosity, is what resulted in the swift passing of the Longitude Act of 1714 and the largest and most famous reward, the Longitude Prize being offered. In the early"
"Boorstin. David Gobel David Gobel (born 1952 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American philanthropist, entrepreneur, inventor, and futurist. He is co-founder and CEO of the Methuselah Foundation, CEO of the Methuselah Fund, and the first to publicly advance the idea of longevity escape velocity or actuarial escape velocity. David Gobel is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Methuselah Foundation, a medical charity based in Springfield, VA. To date, Methuselah has given more than $4 million to support research and development in regenerative medicine. With co-founder Aubrey de Grey, Gobel established Methuselah in 2003 in order to ""shed light on"
"the Lapponian expedition in 1737 led by Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis Cassini was also the first to make successful measurements of longitude by the method suggested by Galileo, using eclipses of the galilean satellites as a clock. In 1683, Giovanni Domenico Cassini presented the correct explanation of the phenomenon of zodiacal light. Zodiacal light is a faint glow that extends away from the Sun in the ecliptic plane of the sky, caused by dusty objects in interplanetary space. Attracted to the heavens in his youth, his first interest was in astrology. While young he read widely on the subject"
"History of longitude The history of longitude is a record of the effort, by astronomers, cartographers and navigators over several centuries, to discover a means of determining longitude. The measurement of longitude is important to both cartography and navigation, in particular to provide safe ocean navigation. Knowledge of both latitude and longitude was required. Finding an accurate and reliable method of determining longitude took centuries of study, and involved some of the greatest scientific minds in human history. Eratosthenes in the 3rd century BC first proposed a system of latitude and longitude for a map of the world. By the"
"committee and the swift passing of the Longitude Act on July 8, 1714. Within this act, is detailed three rewards based on levels of accuracy, which are the same accuracy requirements used for the Axe prize, set by Whiston and Ditton in their petition, and recommended by Sir Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley to the parliamentary committee. In addition, rewards were on offer for those who could produce a method that worked within 80 geographical miles of the coast (where ships would be in most danger), and for those with promising ideas who needed financial help to bring them to"
"The method was first successfully applied by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1681 and was later used extensively for large land surveys; this method, for example, was used to survey France, and later by Zebulon Pike of the midwestern United States in 1806. For sea navigation, where delicate telescopic observations were more difficult, the longitude problem eventually required development of a practical portable marine chronometer, such as that of John Harrison. Late in his life, when totally blind, Galileo designed an escapement mechanism for a pendulum clock (called Galileo's escapement), although no clock using this was built until after the first"
"had already covered the subject seven years previously in his tale of ""The Chronic Argonauts"". In this 1888 short story, inventor Dr. Nebogipfel asks the Reverend Cook: ""Has it never glimmered upon your consciousness that nothing stood between men and a geometry of four dimensions - length, breadth, thickness, and ""duration"" - but the inertia of opinion? ..When we take up this new light of a fourth dimension and reexamine our physical science in its illumination.. ..we find ourselves no longer limited by hopeless restriction to a certain beat of time."" In Wells’ 1895 short story ""The Remarkable Case of"
"by the ""Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides"". Bureau des Longitudes The Bureau des Longitudes () is a French scientific institution, founded by decree of 25 June 1795 and charged with the improvement of nautical navigation, standardisation of time-keeping, geodesy and astronomical observation. During the 19th century, it was responsible for synchronizing clocks across the world. It was headed during this time by François Arago and Henri Poincaré. The Bureau now functions as an academy and still meets monthly to discuss topics related to astronomy. The Bureau was founded by the National Convention after it heard a"
"or advocated in different regions and throughout history. The most widely used modern meridian is the IERS Reference Meridian. It is derived but deviates slightly from the Greenwich Meridian, which was selected as an international standard in 1884. The notion of longitude was developed by the Greek Eratosthenes (c. 276 BC – c. 195 BC) in Alexandria, and Hipparchus (c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC) in Rhodes, and applied to a large number of cities by the geographer Strabo (64/63 BC – c. 24 AD). But it was Ptolemy (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168) who first used"
"which explained how astronomical observations could be used to determine the magnetic variation, was actually Wright's work. Gilbert had invented a dip-compass and compiled a table recording the dip of the needle below the horizon. Wright believed that this device would prove to be extremely useful in determining latitude and, with the help of Blundeville and Briggs, wrote a small pamphlet called ""The Making, Description and Use of the Two Instruments for Seamen to find out the Latitude ... First Invented by Dr. Gilbert"". It was published in 1602 in Blundeville's book ""The Theoriques of the Seuen Planets"". That same"
"both at Sea and Land"", which was widely referenced and discussed. For the next forty years he continued to propose a range of methods to solve the longitude reward, which earned him widespread ridicule, particularly from the group of writers known as the Scriblerians. In one proposal for using magnetic dip to find longitude he produced one of the first isoclinic maps of southern England in 1719 and 1721. In 1734, he proposed using the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Whiston's ""A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All Things"" (1696) was an articulation of"
"Chandler wobble The Chandler wobble or variation of latitude is a small deviation in the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the solid earth, which was discovered by American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891. It amounts to change of about in the point at which the axis intersects the Earth's surface and has a period of 433 days. This wobble, which is a nutation, combines with another wobble with a period of one year, so that the total polar motion varies with a period of about 7 years. The Chandler wobble is an example of the kind of motion"
"are possibly of electrical origin so that material bodies would contract in the line of motion (length contraction). This was in connection with the work of Heaviside (1887), who determined that the electrostatic fields in motion were deformed (Heaviside Ellipsoid), which leads to physically undetermined conditions at the speed of light. However, FitzGerald's idea remained widely unknown and was not discussed before Oliver Lodge published a summary of the idea in 1892. Also Lorentz (1892b) proposed length contraction independently from FitzGerald in order to explain the Michelson–Morley experiment. For plausibility reasons, Lorentz referred to the analogy of the contraction of"
"Harrison to the Board of Longitude, speaking on his behalf and securing additional funding from the Board. The deadbeat escapement is often erroneously credited to George Graham who introduced it around 1715 in his precision regulator clocks. However it was actually invented around 1675 by astronomer Richard Towneley, and first used by Graham's mentor Thomas Tompion in a clock built for Sir Jonas Moore, and in the two precision regulators he made for the new Greenwich Observatory in 1676, mentioned in correspondence between Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed and Towneley His major contribution to geophysics was the discovery of the diurnal"
"created his great theodolite using an accurate dividing engine of his own design. Ramsden's theodolite represented a great step forward in the instrument's accuracy. William Gascoigne invented an instrument that used a telescope with an installed crosshair as a target device, in 1640. James Watt developed an optical meter for the measuring of distance in 1771; it measured the parallactic angle from which the distance to a point could be deduced. Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snellius (a.k.a. Snel van Royen) introduced the modern systematic use of triangulation. In 1615 he surveyed the distance from Alkmaar to Breda, approximately 72 miles (116,1"