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

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time | Dava Sobel | Fascinating Book about Innovation and Politics

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Longitude: The Tru...

	Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Dava Sobel Penguin (Non-Classics), 1996 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 264 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A good, short, informative read

Harrison's story in Longitude by Dava Sobel, is a triumphant one. He openly defied the status quo of the time and greatly changed navigation through his obsession with clocks. The story is a compelling one. It an unknown carpenter from rural England who, through his clock making, makes a name for himself in the scientific field. It's a classic David vs. Goliath story. Scientists and astronomers of the day believed that the only way to measure longitude would come from the sun moon and stars, and Harrison's approach to the longitude mystery made him manny enemies in the astronomy field. He persisted though, and eventually, through his many advancements, developed a clock that could find longitude more accurately than anything else of the day.

Longitude is a good short read for anyone who wants a good story, and also some interesting information on a topic that has almost been forgotten. In the modern age finding longitude is not a problem, but in Harrison's day finding longitude served as a very large problem. Hundreds of men died due to mistakes in longitude calculations, and the problem got so bad that the English government offered up 20,000 pounds to anyone who could solve the problem. The story is compelling and informative. It's a good read for anyone.

-Duncan Olsen

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Fascinating Book about Innovation and Politics

Short work the lays out the interesting story of the invention of the chronometer timepiece. It is bound to be found enjoyable by anyone interested in History, Sea Navigation and Innovation.

Appreciation to Dava Sobel's hard work

I can say that it was so wonderful when you REALLY could broaden your knowledge in history, geography, astronomy, navigation, cartography, and clockmaking as well as learn about history of longitude (which I'd never considered the difficulty of the works our previous scientists, and clockmakers, of course, had to go through for more than two centuries) at the same time through one little 175-page book.
Many might have argued that the Longitude wasn't beautifully written as it would be. However, it made me feel grateful to Dava Sobel for such laborious efforts she put into the book. Just read one paragraph and you'll realize how hard it must have been for her to look for the sources, research over and over, and finally, tried to form all the oldest and hardest-to-read books (you bet how those scientific combining historical books look like!) into one single cohesive and informative work.

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Missed Opportunities

Good story, but not as well told as it could have been. She should have explained, early on, why time and celestial measurement were needed together to determine longitude. I think she also failed to fully develope the class disparities that probably underlay the dispute between the educated mathemeticians and the low-born "mechanic". On the positive side, mercifully short.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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