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73f3c5d
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With his marine clocks, John Harrison tested the waters of space-time. He succeeded, against all odds, in using the fourth--temporal--dimension to link points on the three-dimensional globe. He wrested the world's whereabouts from the stars, and locked the secret in a pocket watch.
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marine-chronometer
marine-clock
longitude
longitude-act
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Dava Sobel |
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eb92c1c
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One degree of longitude equals four minutes of time the world over, but in terms of distance, one degree shrinks from sixty-eight miles at the Equator to virtually nothing at the poles.
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latitude
longitude
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Dava Sobel |
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f1ab565
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The zero-degree parallel of latitude is fixed by the laws of nature, while the zero-degree meridian of longitude shifts like the sands of time.
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meridian
longitude
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Dava Sobel |
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153d3cd
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Having established itself securely on shipboard, the chronometer was soon taken for granted, like any other essential thing, and the whole question of its contentious history, along with the name of its original inventor, dropped from the consciousness of the seamen who used it every day.
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jeremy-thacker
longitude
longitude-act
invention
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Dava Sobel |
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e5d459e
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Earlier maps had underestimated the distances to other continents and exaggerated the outlines of individual nations. Now global dimensions could be set, with authority, by the celestial spheres. Indeed, King Louis XIV of France, confronted with a revised map of his domain based on accurate longitude measurements, reportedly complained that he was losing more territory to his astronomers than to his enemies.
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humorous
king-louis-xiv
cartology
longitude
france
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Dava Sobel |
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7d7296d
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"In the wake of the Longitude Act, the concept of "discovering the longitude" became a synonym for attempting the impossible."
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cartology
longitude
longitude-act
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Dava Sobel |
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23cab53
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"The British Parliament, in its famed Longitude Act of 1714, set the highest bounty of all, naming a prize equal to a king's ransom (several million dollars in today's currency) for a "Practicable and Useful" means of determining longitude."
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longitude
longitude-act
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Dava Sobel |