Skip to main content

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.


Tasman National Park Coastline #1, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013.

Longitude, Dava Sobel: A bit of background first: the "longitude problem" was one of the trickiest practical and scientific dilemmas of the eighteenth century. Lacking the ability to measure longitude made sailing around on unchartered oceans decidedly dangerous. For example, in October 1707 the English navy lost 2,000 men after the Admiral misgauged their position (by quite some margin). Even more bittersweet was the fact that the very same Admiral had earlier hanged a seaman who – having illicitly kept his own careful log – challenged those who argued that the fleet was in safe waters.

This disaster in particular prompted the English government to establish a Board of Longitude and it offered £20,000 – an immense amount for the time – for a solution to the greatest problem of the day. The quest to solve the riddle of longitude is at the heat of this book, which is in alternated moods a history of astronomy, navigation and horology (that’s the art of measuring time, for the uninitiated). It’s also a bit of a morality play in which the central figure is one John Harrison, a self-taught Yorkshire clockmaker, and his 40-year obsession with building the perfect timekeeper.

Although the concept of the popular history or popular science book written for the general reader is now very familiar, Longitude was one of the earliest success stories. It shouldn’t be surprising that science is full of great yarns, yet they are often not told because many of the critical components are beyond the reach of the layperson. This is a pity, as science resembles any other human activity, performed by people that sleep and breathe and cry and hold the same passions and prejudices as everybody else.

As such, Longitude has the hallmarks of such a tale. There are good guys and bad guys. You have an honest, hardworking fellow doing his best for the common but striking obstinacy from an establishment resistant to change and facing attack from more cynical types out to make a quick buck.

So we have the story. Interweaving these characters with interesting asides and cameos from some of the famous people of the day – Cook and Bligh, Galileo and Newton, King George II and a host of government ministers – as well as explorations of related scientific developments fill the book up with an awful lot of ideas.

I liked it, but must admit the sections delving into detailed explanations of advancements in theoretical physics or astronomy was somewhat hard-going. That said, I survived and no doubt you will too. C+.



Tasman National Park Coastline #2, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...