Ships need a reliable way to know their exact location at sea — and for centuries, the lack of a dependable method caused shipwrecks and economic havoc for every seafaring nation. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll meet John Harrison, the self-taught English clockmaker who dedicated his life to crafting a reliable solution to this crucial problem.
We’ll also admire a dentist and puzzle over a magic bus stop.
Intro:
Working in an Antarctic tent in 1908, Douglas Mawson found himself persistently interrupted by Edgeworth David.
In 1905, Sir Gilbert Parker claimed to have seen the astral body of Sir Crane Rasch in the House of Commons.
Sources for our feature on John Harrison:
Dava Sobel and William H. Andrews, The Illustrated Longitude, 1995.
William J.H. Andrewes, ed., The Quest for Longitude, 1996.
Katy Barrett, “‘Explaining’ Themselves: The Barrington Papers, the Board of Longitude, and the Fate of John Harrison,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 65:2 (June 20, 2011), 145-162.
William E. Carter and Merri S. Carter, “The Age of Sail: A Time When the Fortunes of Nations and Lives of Seamen Literally Turned With the Winds Their Ships Encountered at Sea,” Journal of Navigation 63:4 (October 2010), 717-731.
J.A. Bennett, “Science Lost and Longitude Found: The Tercentenary of John Harrison,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 24:4 (1993), 281-287.
Arnold Wolfendale, “Shipwrecks, Clocks and Westminster Abbey: The Story of John Harrison,” Historian 97 (Spring 2008), 14-17.
William E. Carter and Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered,” American Scientist 100:2 (March/April 2012), 102-105.
Robin W. Spencer, “Open Innovation in the Eighteenth Century: The Longitude Problem,” Research Technology Management 55:4 (July/August 2012), 39-43.
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