Discovering the "secret of the longitude" was therefore a great goal for any ship's captain and for any country with business, military or commercial, on the high seas. During long voyages, calculating one's distance became nearly impossible to gauge with serious accuracy. Without longitudinal calculations, many ships became lost. All the clocks that existed were too unreliable, often keeping time at very different rates depending on temperature. Calculations by moon were impracticable and could only be used at night. Since ships were in motion, the position of the sun would also not suffice. At sea, there were no landmarks by which one's east-west position could be tracked.
The problem of longitude was long regarded as unsolvable.
Longitude is the story of English clockmaker John Harrison and how he figured out how to track longitude, or the east-west position of ships.
0 kommentar(er)
