Dava Sobel.
DAVA SOBEL: JOHN HARRISON BIOGRAPHY
LONGITUDE: BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN HARRISON (1995)
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In the 18th century, the ability to measure longitude was a very serious scientific challenge. Without such ability, sailors were effectively lost once they were no long in sight of land. Many lives, and the fortunes of nations, hung on this issue. After decades of failed efforts, the British Admiralty decided to offer £20,000 (then a huge sum) to anyone whose device proved successful. Although, due to political rivalries, he had difficulty collecting he money, the effective winner of this concept was carpenter and clockmaker John Harrison. His invention of the marine chronometer revolutionised navigation and greatly reduced the risks of long distance sea travel. Harrison’s great achievement was to design a clock which maintained its accuracy under variations of humidity, pressuee and temperature, which resisted corrosion by salt air, and could function on a constantly tilting ship. This, with great ingenuity, he achieved.
In its review, the Los Angeles Times wrote: ‘Here’s a swell little book that tells an amazing story that is largely forgotten today but that deserves to be remembered. It is the story of the problem of navigation at sea--which plagued ocean-going mariners for centuries--and how it was finally solved.’
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Dava Sobel (born 1947) is an American author, whose work deals with scientific topics in a way that is intelligible to the ordinary reader. In addition to her book on John Harrison, she has written books on Gallileo’s daughter, and on the 16th century astronomer Copernicus. Dava Sobel enjoys chasing solar eclipses, of which she has seen eight. She describes them as ‘the closest thing to witnessing a miracle’.
