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S'està carregant… Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest… (1995 original; edició 1996)de Dava Sobel
Detalls de l'obraLa longitud de Dava Sobel (Author) (1995)
  
Favourite Books (428) » 5 més No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra.  northwestknitter | Mar 28, 2021 |  The quest to build the longitudinal clock, enabling sea traffic and perfecting the clockwork mechanism which European history hinged upon. A quick and fascinating read. (  ) wickenden | Mar 8, 2021 | NA  pszolovits | Feb 3, 2021 | "When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales. --Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi" Author Dava Sobel begins each chapter with a literary quote -- a sign that she knows how to make science and history palatable to a casual reader like me. Actually I found this book so engrossing it was hard to put down. Not being able to accurately measure longitude put seagoing vessels in grave peril of crashing or being stranded at sea. So serious was the problem that in 1714 the British Parliament offered a king's ransom for a solution. English clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776), a self-taught genius, was obsessed with solving the longitude problem with a clock that would keep accurate time at sea. For forty years he devoted his life to creating his chronometer. The scientific elite favored an astronomical solution over a mechanical one. This is a suspenseful history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking -- a true story of obsession, intrigue, and the common man against the establishment -- and a beautifully written "gem of a book". The elegant small sized paperback (which I found at Goodwill) has French fold covers and full color plates. Around the year in 52 books challenge notes: #21. A book related to Maximilian Hell, the noted astronomer and Jesuit Priest who was born in 1720 ( ) Linda_Louise | Jan 20, 2021 | Interesting read but felt like should have been an article rather than a book. (  ) drew_asson | Dec 3, 2020 |
 Ms. Sobel, a former science reporter for The New York Times, confesses in her source notes that ''for a few months at the outset, I maintained the insane idea that I could write this book without traveling to England and seeing the timekeepers firsthand.'' Eventually she did visit the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where the four clocks that James Harrison constructed are exhibited. She writes, ''Coming face with these machines at last -- after having read countless accounts of their construction and trial, after having seen every detail of their insides and outsides in still and moving pictures -- reduced me to tears.'' Such is the eloquence of this gem of a book that it makes you understand exactly how she felt.  Here's a swell little book that tells an amazing story that is largely forgotten today but that deserves to be remembered. It is the story of the problem of navigation at sea--which plagued ocean-going mariners for centuries--and how it was finally solved. It is the story of how an unknown, uneducated and unheralded clockmaker solved the problem that had stumped some of the greatest scientific minds. And it is the story of how the Establishment of the 18th Century tried to block his solution. The essential problem is this: In the middle of the ocean, how can you tell where you are? That is, how can you tell how far east or west of your starting point you have gone? Té l'adaptacióTé una guia d'estudi per a estudiants
Referències a aquesta obra en fonts externes.
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 Google Books — S'està carregant…Cobertes popularsValoracióMitjana: (3.87)
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4
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Docked a star from my rating because there were times it read like the author was trying to get the word count up by using sentences with just too unnecessary words thrown in.
I chose this book because of my interest in history and geography but ultimately that may have been the reason I found it uninteresting. There just wasn't enough new information for me. I would recommend this book to the type of person who likes to watch intricate youtube videos of how other metal things are crafted.
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