Centuries-Old Longitude Clock Runs Again

douglips writes "BBC News has published a story about John Harrison's H4 chronometer and how it has been wound up for the UK's National Science Week. After 40 years of work [Harrison] proved in 1764 that a clock could be used to locate a ship's position at sea with extraordinary accuracy." Ah, the GPS system of its day. T. adds: This is the timekeeping device which Dava Sobel wrote about in Longitude .

Comments

A work of genius

[(outer-limits)]

Read the book for an amazing insight into a work of genius. The days when a craftsman was exactly that.

Test your IQ!

Re:Pratchett and Time

[nickynicky9doors]

I stopped reading Prachett about eight years ago and even then the initial premise had been played out. The first books made me laugh raucously outloud.

\m/

[vena]

That is what screwed everyone up at the time, because the majority of folks were into heavy metal

ROCK.

OT, I know, but it must be said

[Anonymous Coward]

This page widening crap is really getting annoying. Believe it or not, some of us *enjoy* reading /. at -1, and these posts make the page unreadable. Editors should be given the ability to delete these posts. It's not censorship, because these posts are really not speech. They aren't intended to be read, they are intended to make other people's comments unreadable, and that is not acceptable.

Please, stop these crapflooders from ruining everyone's experience.

Not really a chronometer, but a shovel.

[istartedi]

A shovel, you say? Daft!