
Before GPS, sailors died by the thousands. "Longitude" chronicles John Harrison's 40-year quest to solve navigation's deadliest puzzle, winning a king's ransom and changing history. Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, this slim bestseller inspired a BBC series that captivated millions.
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Imagine being stranded in the middle of the vast ocean with no way to determine your exact position. This was the reality for sailors for centuries, leading to countless shipwrecks and lost lives. While determining latitude (north-south position) was relatively simple-sailors could measure the height of the sun or North Star-longitude (east-west position) presented an entirely different challenge. The world is wrapped in these invisible lines that converge at the poles like segments of an orange. Unlike latitude, longitude has no natural starting point, and is fundamentally linked to time. Since Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours, each hour represents 15 degrees of longitude. To know your longitude at sea, you needed to know what time it was at a reference point while also knowing your local time. This seems simple enough today, but on rolling ships in the 18th century, pendulum clocks couldn't maintain accuracy amid the pitch and roll of ocean voyages. Without accurate time, sailors were literally lost at sea, relying on educated guesswork-"dead reckoning"-with often deadly consequences. What's remarkable is how long this problem persisted and how its solution would eventually come not from established scientists but from a humble, self-taught clockmaker.
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Creato da alumni della Columbia University a San Francisco
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Creato da alumni della Columbia University a San Francisco

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