Longitude

Author: Dava Sobel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802779433
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem." Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.

360 Degrees Longitude

Author: John Higham
Publisher: Easton Studio Press, LLC
ISBN: 1935212990
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
Much more than a travel narrative 360 Degrees Longitude: One Family’s Journey Around the World is a glimpse at what it means to be a “global citizen”—a progressively changing view of the world as seen through the eyes of an American family of four. After more than a decade of planning, John Higham and his wife September bid their high-tech jobs and suburban lives good-bye, packed up their home and set out with two children, ages eight and eleven, to travel around the world. In the course of the next 52 weeks they crossed 24 time zones, visited 28 countries and experienced a lifetime of adventures. Making their way across the world, the Highams discovered more than just different foods and cultures; they also learned such diverse things as a Chilean mall isn’t the best place to get your ears pierced, and that elephants appreciate flowers just as much as the next person. But most importantly, they learned about each other, and just how much a family can weather if they do it together. 360 Degrees Longitude employs Google’s wildly popular Google Earth as a compliment to the narrative. Using your computer you can spin the digital globe to join the adventure cycling through Europe, feeling the cold stare of a pride of lions in Africa, and breaking down in the Andes. Packed with photos, video and text, the online Google Earth companion adds a dimension not possible with mere paper and ink. Fly over the terrain of the Inca Trail or drill down to see the majesty of the Swiss Alps—without leaving the comfort of your chair.

The Illustrated Longitude

Author: Dava Sobel
Publisher: Paw Prints
ISBN: 9781439559321
Category : Chronometers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A new illustrated edition of the best-selling Longitude chronicles the tale of the eighteenth-century inventor John Harrison, who created the chronometer and, in the process, saved thousands of lives and great fortunes. Reprint.

Latitude and Longitude

Author: Rebecca Aberg
Publisher: Children's Press(CT)
ISBN: 9780516227238
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The popular Rookie Books expand their horizons - to all corners of the globe! With this series all about geography, emergent readers will take off on adventures to cities, nations, waterways, and habitats around the world...and right in their own backyards.

Greenwich Time and the Longitude: Official Millennium Edition

Author: Derek Howse
Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
The history of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich has been revised to coincide with the Millenium. Color illustrations and updated text tell the story of Greenwich from its foundations in 1676 to its present status as Longitude 0°, the world's Prime Meridian for measuring longitude and time. The book covers the importance of longitude for navigation and traces the history of Greenwich Time, the basis of universal time-keeping. The book is co-published with the National Maritime Museum, where Derek Howse was the former Head of Navigation and Astronomy.

World Regional Geography (with Subregions)

Author: Lydia Mihelic Pulsipher
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780716777922
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 692

Book Description
Shows how individuals are affected by, and respond to, economic, social, and political forces at all levels of scale: global, regional and local. It offers an inclusive picture of people in a globalizing world - men, women, children, both mainstream and marginalized citizens - not as seen from a western perspective, but as they see themselves. Core topics of physical, economic, cultural, and political geography are examined from a contemporary perspective, based on authoritative insights from recent geographic theory and examples from countries from around the world.

Finding Longitude

Author: Richard Dunn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780007525867
Category : Longitude
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Official publication of the National Maritime Museum's exhibition "Ships, Clocks and Stars: The Quest for Longitude". 300 years ago, amidst growing frustration from the naval community and pressure from the increasing importance of international trade, the British government passed the 1714 Longitude Act. It was an attempt to solve one of the most pressing problems of the age: how to determine a ship's longitude (east-west position) at sea. With life-changing rewards on offer, the challenge captured the imaginations and talents of astronomers, skilled craftsmen, politicians, seamen and satirists. This beautifully illustrated book is a detailed account of these stories, and how the longitude problem was solved. Highlights of the book include: * Foreword by the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees. * Specially commissioned photographs of the National Maritime Museum's collection. * A new description of the collaborations and conflicts in a tale of technical creativity, scientific innovation and hard commercialism. From the same publisher as Dava Sobel's Longitude, Finding Longitude tells a new story of one of the great achievements of the Georgian age, and how it changed our understanding of the world.

Longitudes and Attitudes

Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429916346
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

Book Description
America's leading observer of the international scene on the minute-by-minute events of September 11, 2001--before, during and after . As the Foreign Affairs columnist for the The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman is in a unique position to interpret the world for American readers. Twice a week, Friedman's celebrated commentary provides the most trenchant, pithy,and illuminating perspective in journalism. Longitudes and Attitudes contains the columns Friedman has published about the most momentous news story of our time, as well as a diary of his experiences and reactions during this period of crisis. As the author writes, the book is "not meant to be a comprehensive study of September 11 and all the factors that went into it. Rather, my hope is that it will constitute a 'word album' that captures and preserves the raw, unpolished, emotional and analytical responses that illustrate how I, and others, felt as we tried to grapple with September and its aftermath, as they were unfolding." Readers have repeatedly said that Friedman has expressed the essence of their own feelings, helping them not only by explaining who "they" are, but also by reassuring us about who "we" are. More than any other journalist writing, Friedman gives voice to America's awakening sense of its role in a changed world.

Longitude and Latitude, with Attitude

Author: Rufus McGaugh
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781976268724
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Rufus McGaugh knew early on that he wanted to see the world-all of it. And, later on, he did just that.Longitude and Latitude, with Attitude chronicles Rufus's 49 years of travels around the globe to every country in the world. It relates his experiences, both harrowing and humorous, in entertaining and amusing (sometimes even instructive!) vignettes.Rufus, a Vietnam vet who was awarded the Purple Heart in 1970, became a Vietnam vet against the war, got a college degree, and taught social studies at Brownell Middle School in the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe for 39 years. During that time-and before and after-he spent his summers, vacations, and retirement fulfilling a life-long dream to travel to every corner of the Earth. He has visited countries near and far, well known and obscure (including the closed regimes of North Korea and Libya). He has met interesting people, seen fascinating sights, and observed unusual events.He has been hassled by the authorities in Russia (twice in one day). He was arrested-and later stalked by a leopard-in Zimbabwe. He met Miss America (well, Miss South Carolina) in Vietnam, outfoxed (or so he thought) a tailor in Hong Kong, and broke both arms bicycling in Cuba.Longitude and Latitude, with Attitude is the unpretentious, often comic, frequently informative chronicle of these and other adventures and misadventures he experienced on his journeys. Other wanderers like him-and armchair travelers everywhere-will be captivated by it. The lively writing is supplemented by more than 50 pictures that inveterate photographer Rufus has taken in the course of his trips.

Ships, Clocks, and Stars

Author: Richard Dunn
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062357174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 601

Book Description
A tale of eighteenth-century invention and competition, commerce and conflict, this is a lively, illustrated, and accurate chronicle of the search to solve “the longitude problem,” the question of how to determine a ship’s position at sea—and one that changed the history of mankind. Ships, Clocks, and Stars brings into focus one of our greatest scientific stories: the search to accurately measure a ship’s position at sea. The incredible, illustrated volume reveals why longitude mattered to seafaring nations, illuminates the various solutions that were proposed and tested, and explores the invention that revolutionized human history and the man behind it, John Harrison. Here, too, are the voyages of Captain Cook that put these revolutionary navigational methods to the test. Filled with astronomers, inventors, politicians, seamen, and satirists, Ships, Clocks, and Stars explores the scientific, political, and commercial battles of the age, as well as the sailors, ships, and voyages that made it legend—from Matthew Flinders and George Vancouver to the voyages of the Bounty and the Beagle. Featuring more than 150 photographs specially commissioned from Britain’s National Maritime Museum, this evocative, detailed, and thoroughly fascinating history brings this age of exploration and enlightenment vividly to life.