Book Review: Longitude

Written by Jay Dowling October 02, 2009 Hits: 530 Favorites

4.0 (1)

Longitude is the story of the development of a clock accurate enough for ship navigation. The development of this clock was all the more incredible in that it was made of wood and worked as a precision time piece in spite of wide temperature and humidity variation all while being tossed around by the varying waves of the ocean.

A few weeks ago I was visiting the Mystic Seaport Museum and went into the clockmaker’s shop. Besides the expected timepieces they had quadrants, sextants, some interesting lathes for watch making and a wood clock. After noticing the all wood clock I mentioned the book to the museum employee answering questions in the shop and he pointed me to a book, it was an illustrated version of Longitude which I was unaware existed. He also mentioned there was a movie available on DVD … so put that on the list Santa.

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Overall:

4.0

This really was an amazing story

Overall:

4.0

Reviewed by Clive Maxfield
October 04, 2009

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I saw the Film Jay mentions on TV -- it truly is an amazing tale -- and I envy Jay visiting the Mystic Seaport Museum and seeing all that cool stuff. So many things to do and see ... so little time to do everything in (see also my review on the book "In Search of Time" here on TechBites)

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Jay Dowling