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Longitude calculations can be simplified using a clock is set to the local time of a starting point whose longitude is known, transporting it to a new location, and using it for astronomical observations. The longitude of the new location can be determined by comparing the difference of local mean time and the time of the transported clock.
John Harrison was born in Foulby in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the first of five children in his family. [3] His stepfather worked as a carpenter at the nearby Nostell Priory estate. A house on the site of what may have been the family home bears a blue plaque. [4] Around 1700, the Harrison family moved to the Lincolnshire village of Barrow ...
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time is a 1995 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.
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; 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 about the Harvard Computers.
Longitude is given as an angular measurement with 0° at the Prime Meridian, ranging from −180° westward to +180° eastward. The Greek letter λ (lambda) [38] [39] is used to denote the location of a place on Earth east or west of the Prime Meridian. Each degree of longitude is sub-divided into 60 minutes, each of which is divided into 60 ...
Their family estate was at Doma, also known as Höjen or Högen (locally as Högen 2). The name Celsius is a latinization of the estate's name (Latin celsus 'mound'). As the son of an astronomy professor, Nils Celsius, nephew of botanist Olof Celsius and the grandson of the mathematician Magnus Celsius and the astronomer Anders Spole , [ 3 ...
David Thompson (30 April 1770 – 10 February 1857) was an Anglo-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer, known to some native people as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer".
The Longitude Act 1714 (13 Ann. c. 14), also known as the Discovery of Longitude at Sea Act 1713, was an act of Parliament of Great Britain passed in July 1714 at the end of the reign of Queen Anne. It established the Board of Longitude and offered monetary rewards ( Longitude rewards ) for anyone who could find a simple and practical method ...