Daily Archives: 5-February-2016

I liked reading the book Longitude by Dava Sobel and I also enjoyed the television movie version. I was recently doing some reading about the Bounty mutiny when I realized that the problem of measuring longitude played a role in that tale as well. The story of longitude is one of technology and obsession. While mariners had been able to measure their latitude accurately for centuries, measuring one's longitude required the development of accurate timepieces. Longitude is the story of the development of the marine chronometer. In essence, our modern GPS systems are extremely accurate clocks that provide the ultimate realization of the longitude goal. Continue reading →