This invention saved thousands of sailors from shipwrecks

Courtesy of the Royal Museums of Greenwich.

#AbsoluteHistory

[alextaylor]

I would love to go to that museum one day.

[BWo-bbyw]

They didn't pay him the full prize.

[afterlife]

My family has been in the watch and clock industry for more than 300 years originating in England.

[horationelson]

I’m a modern day sailor, a navigational officer in the merchant navy. Yes we still have to learn and use celestial navigation. If your ship chronometer is showing GMT, and you’re in the middle of the Atlantic. Then record the GMT time when the sun peaks at noon (for example 1700) then multiply the 5 hour difference by 15° (because 360°/15=24hrs) and there you have it, you’re 75° West

[safebox]

You skipped the best part; he kept making smaller and smaller versions until the day he died, taking longer with each one.

The man was so stained by the insult that the first one "wasn't accurate enough".

[Gman]

I’m glad the comments knew the actual reason. OP makes it sound like they just didn’t want to be late.

[BlueRidgeCritter]

The Dava Sobel book "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time " was one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. And later listened to the audiobook, it was amazing too.

[georgeparkin]

It's often overlooked that he invented the bi metalic strip to overcome temperature fluctuations. Essential in engineering.

[wargey]

The time had to be kept to GMT not the start location time that is because if you knew the time at the Zero meridian based on the position of the sun you could tell exactly where you were

[paulmaccaroni]

Would love to see a full Crime Weekly episode on this!

[zam]

Harrison was so bad ass... working on a large standing clock, working out how to deal temperature fluctuations and such
Then he saw this pocket watch based on a mechanisms...He just scraped his past work and started over

[pbdrafting]

Wow good story. Smart human. Sometimes l get really blown away with how smart humans can be.

[DownhillAllTheWay]

The difficulty of designing a clock for use at sea was the rolling of the ship. Obviously, pendulum clocks wouldn't do it. Harrison designed and built three clocks with all weights counterbalanced, using springs in place of gravity, but though he thought he'd cracked it, when they were tested at sea, they lost time. If the ship had been simply rolling fore and aft, and port to starboard, the clocks probably would have worked, but what he had not taken into account was the circular rolling of the ship. Imagine the top of the mast describing a circle in the air. These clocks all used heavy weights that ticked approximately (from memory of seeing them) once per second - or possibly slower than that. The final design was more likem a large pocket watch with a thermally compensated balance wheel, ticking 5 times per second.

Smaller is better! Modern crystals "tick" 32, 768 times per second.

[peternesbitt]

Sir Francis Drake must have been way ahead of his time. He used the solar system to navigate the globe in 1577-80. He also robbed 78 Spanish ships in his illustrious career.

[timothylessing]

I want to see the rest please include a link to the full Video!!!!

[paulstewart]

In the 70s the navigators used sextants and a chronomèter. That was in the middle of the pacific where there were no navigational aids at all.

[robertplatt]

Watch "Longitude" with Michael Gambon!

[branaldinho]

Crazy to think one of these watches ended up in del boys garage

[edward]

Apparently a prize was offered for a time piece accurate to within 3 seconds per month. From memory it was 20 000 pounds and when it was invented the authorities were most reluctant to pay out - but did eventually. And the reason for the need for such accuracy was something about longitude and maps

[MisterNiles]

Someone should make a movie about this