January 5, 2015
Sobel: Longitude
My heart has a timepiece that keeps the time difference between Dipolog and other cities all over the world where friends reside. I am sure that I am not the only one who has special time zones programmed internally.
Regardless of that, it has been a long time since I stopped to think about longitude. Reading Dava Sobel’s book made me realize how much we take for granted in this modern world.
This little book surprisingly brings the reader way back to Galileo when he wondrously redrew the world by determining longitude from observing Jupiter’s moons. However, his method was only effective in finding longitude on land.
It took over a century after Galileo’s death when a solution was established, and by then, thousands had already perished at sea simply because precise knowledge of the hour in two different places at once whilst at sea seemed impossible. Nations were already mourning the loss of their best seamen, and these tragedies prompted the British government to form The Board of Longitude who offered an enormous sum to the discoverer of a method for determining longitude at sea.
Longitude is the true story of a humble clockmaker who stood alone as the only person in his time who was resolute enough to solve the longitude problem with a timepiece while the rest of the intellectual world insisted that the answer could only be found through astronomy. This is the story of John Harrison and his struggles, simply but skillfully told by Dava Sobel.
But then again, I usually find passing tidbits in books that become more significant to me than the bigger story: “Every great captain in the Age of Exploration became lost at sea despite the best available charts and compasses.” I somehow found comfort in that line. I suppose it’s alright to feel a little lost sometimes.
Flowers from a Book 
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