Reddit reviews Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
We found 10 Reddit comments about Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
If you like this, I recommend reading this excellent book on Harrison, the inventor of the escapement. Harrison pretty much single-handedly changed how the seas were navigated, allowing ships to sail with much more precision and thus drastically reducing travel time.
What you're looking for is celestial navigation and it is a LOT trickier than you would think. First, you need to be able to identify the navigation stars. When I was using c-nav on a daily basis I was able to identify 19 stars that were extremely useful for navigation. Without a sextant, specific math skills, an almanac, and the crazy little book that has all the information you need about the stars and planets (or a great compueter program to do it for you once you input your measurements), you'll still be a bit lost even if you know all the stars.
One thing you can do without all of the above is learn the declination of a few major stars. This will give you some sense of your latitude. For example, Arcturus has about a 20° dec. This just so happens to coincide with the southern tip of Hawaii. So if you sail north until Arcturus passes through the zenith, then you know that you are at the same latitude as Hawaii. Knowing your Longitude, however, is a much more difficult task.
http://www.celestialnavigation.net/
http://www.celnav.de/ (you can download ICE, which is what we used to do the calculations)
If you are actually interested in c-nav, I recommend you go to your local marina (if you have one) and see if the coast guard or a sailing society is putting on any courses in c-nav. It is one of the most satisfying things to do, but it does take time to learn. It is complicated and confusing. But man, when you can line up a pinwheel there is NO better feeling. To know that you are RIGHT THERE and you used tiny pinpricks of light gazillions miles away to find it. Man. Its amazing.
I also recommend the book Longitude by David Sobel as an interesting read that goes along with c-nav. Latitude was always easy. LONGITUDE, however, was a problem that plagued navigators for centuries.
They knew about it before they could calculate it, and they knew it was really affecting naval powers' ability to do their thing. There's a great book called Longitude (this might be it, but there are a few books by that title on Amazon) describing how badly governments actually wanted someone who could work it out, and the process of working it out.
As to how it affected explorers: not only them but if affected people who knew where they were going. If you can't work out your longitude, you don't know how far along your journey you are unless you've been monitoring your speed and direction constantly and with perfect accuracy through a several-months-long voyage. Your only other option is to never ever ever leave site of land, but they worked out longitude after colonization of the new world started, so that wasn't always an option.
They tried some crazy shit to work it out before someone invented clocks, too. One popular strategy was to take two dogs who are brothers, leave one in London or wherever, and take the other on the ship. Every day, or every other day, or once a week, you stab the dog in London and hope its brother can sense the wound because of the familial connection and start whining for no reason out at sea.
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel
For a look at what went into finding the longitude, look here
And don't forget the mastermind who solved it all!
And if you want a good book all about it I'd recommend this one.
fantastic read, great story, great history, great 'history of science' anecdote. great tl;dr:
> scurvy bad; science hard
this piece reminded me a lot of another similar book about the development of the chronometer:
longitude
[](/a06 "What? No mention of the Peterson Projection??") Longitude by Dava Sobel is also a fun little read.
I remeber reading in the book 'Longitude' that John Harrison, the man who built the clock that kept perfect time had built a wooden church clock when working as a carpenter earlier in his life.
http://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-Problem/dp/0140258795
Longitude