Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel, William J. H. Andrewes, William J.H. Andrewes
BUY IT NEW
- $28.00 List price$26.60 Online price$23.94 Member price(Save 14%)Limited Time Offer! Everyone receives the Member Price on books.
See Details
Reserve it at BN.com & pick it up in 60 minutes at your local store.
Enter a zip code
(Paperback - Reprint)
- Pub. Date: January 2003
- 224pp
- Sales Rank: 109,093
Buy it Used: 14 copies from $4.94 See All Available
Customers who bought this also bought
Product Details
- Pub. Date: January 2003
- Publisher: Walker & Company
- Format: Paperback, 224pp
- Sales Rank: 109,093
- ISBN-13: 9780802775931
- ISBN: 0802775934
- Edition Description: Reprint
Synopsis
A fully illustrated edition of the international best-seller Longitude.
The Illustrated Longitude recounts in words and images the epic quest to solve the greatest scientific problem of the eighteenth and three prior centuries: determining how a captain could pinpoint his ship's location at sea. All too often throughout the ages of exploration, voyages ended in disaster when crew and cargo were either lost at sea or destroyed upon the rocks of an unexpected landfall. Thousands of lives and the fortunes of nations hung on a resolution to the longitude problem.
To encourage a solution, governments established prizes for anyone whose method or device proved successful. The largest reward of £20,000-- truly a king's ransom-- was offered by Britain's Parliament in 1714. The scientific establishment-- from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton-- had been certain that a celestial answer would be found and invested untold effort in this pursuit. By contrast, John Harrison imagined and built the unimaginable: a clock that told perfect time at sea, known today as the chronometer. Harrison's trials and tribulations during his forty-year quest to win the prize are the culmination of this remarkable story.
The Illustrated Longitude brings a new and important dimension to Dava Sobel's celebrated story. It contains the entire original narrative of Longitude, redesigned to accompany 183 images chosen by William Andrewes-- from portraints of every important figure in the story to maps and diagrams, scientifc instruments, and John Harrison's remarkable sea clocks themselves. Andrewes's elegant captions and sidebars on scientific and historical events tell theirown story of longitude, paralleling and illuminating Sobel's memorable tale.
Dava Sobel is the author of the best-sellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the editor and translator of Letters to Father. She lives in East Hampton, New York. William J. H. Andrewes is a museum consultant specializing in the history of scientific instruments and time measurement. He is the editor of The Quest for Longitude and lives in Concord, Massachusetts.
Praise for The Illustrated Longitude
"Two respected tellers of the longitude tale have teamed up! Sobel 's compelling prose is coupled with colorful and detailed illustrations provided by Andrewes. This edition responds to entreaties by readers who loved Sobel's Longitude but who wanted pictures to go with it."-- Mercator's World
"Enormous care has been devoted to the illustrations and captions. Readers will finish this book considerably more educated about geography and navigation."-- USA Today
"This new illustrated edition of Sobel's 1995 study of Harrison's remarkable instrument strikingly illuminates this largely unknown but crucial discovery."-- Dallas Morning News
Praise for Longitude
"As much a tale of intrigue as it is of science .... A book full of gems for anyone interested in history, geography, astronomy, navigation, clockmaking, and-- not the least-- plain old human ambition and greed."-- Philadelphia Inquirer
"Intricate and elegant .... No novelist could improve on the elements of Dava Sobel's Longitude."-- Newsweek
"Anyone with an interest in history or things maritime should consider Longitude. This fascinating volume brings alive the eighteenth century."-- USA Today
"Nearly perfect prose and a magnificent story, an extraordinary book."-- Washington Post Book World
Entertainment Weekly
Beautifully written.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
Dava Sobel is the author of the best-sellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, and the editor and translator of Letters to Father. She lives in East Hampton, New York.
William J. H. Andrewes is a museum consultant specializing in the history of scientific instruments and time measurement. He is the editor of The Quest for Longitude and lives in Concord, Massachusetts.
Customer Reviews
Before John Harrison created marine clocks and watches, sea captains were sailing blindby Ausonius
Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings
November 01, 2009: Christopher Columbus's most vital skill as a navigator was his ability to read tides, currents and winds. In his day sailors had tools to tell them how far north or south they were (latitude). What they could only approximate was how far east or west they were (longitude). If they knew the latitude of Havana, for example, they would sail south from Lisbon as fast as they could, find that parallel of latitude and head due west. They would also make use of towed "logs" to estimate their speed. Sailing masters were also alert to major currents such as the Gulf Stream. But they could and did make catastrophic errors. *** This blindness in calculating east-west location at sea, out of sight of land, and how it was finally overcome by the late 18th Century is the central topic of THE ILLUSTRATED LONGITUDE, co-authored by science writer Dava Sobel and historian William J. H. Andrewes. The two authors document and evaluate the works of dozens of renowned mathematicians and astronomers over the two preceding centuries. Those highly educated men created and used maps of stars and the solar system fleshed out by elaborate numerical tables to help seaman know where they were. Before the 1760s astronomers had created a reasonably accurate method that, when the weather was clear, permitted a trained observer to calculate his longitude in only four hours. This was reduced to 30 minutes by the book's "villain," Reverend Nevil Maskelyne. A great astronomer in his own right, Maskelyne was the last great champion of the astronomical school of longitude solvers. He was "villainous" only to his chief rivals: a father and son team creating timepieces as the decisive instruments for calculation of whereabouts at sea. *** Father was John Harrison. His son was William. In 1737 John Harrison displayed the world's first practical marine timekeeper. By 1815 there were 5,000 of them in use on the world's oceans. (p. 193). Both methods, star charts, etc. and timekeepers, remained in use. But chronometers were the clear winner, although astronomical observations and charts were still needed from time to time at sea to assure that the timepieces were staying accurate through storms and cannonades. Hundreds of astronomers had lost to one man, John Harrison, ably assisted over the decades by his son William. Astronomer Nevil Maskelyne stood on the shoulders of giants like Sir Isaac Newton. John Harrison was a carpenter who read Newton and taught himself to be a clockmaker. The heavenly school of learned, university-educated longitude solvers could easily understand each others' equations and physics. By contrast, John Harrison wrote possibly the most undecipherable English ever published. He was, moreover, secretive and reluctant to explain himself to potential rivals unless paid to do so. Yet the little man won! *** Even if you do not read a word of this book's narrative, sidebars, and chapter headings quoting Robert Burns and Lord Byron, you will nonetheless be drawn to its colorful portraits of principals, including amateur astronomer King George III, to its maps, photographs and drawings of clocks and other sea instruments and to its diagrams of inner workings of sea chronometers. *** The pace quickens throughout the 18th century. Names fly at you of astronomers and watchmakers. It would be easy to lose track of Maskelyne, Arnold, Earnshaw, Mudge and company unaided by their portraits from life. A grand book!...
I Also Recommend: Longitude, Lost at Sea - The Search for Longitude, The Riddle of the Compass, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Admiral Of The Ocean Sea.
Loading...