A Practical Method For Finding The Longitude And Latitude Of A Ship At Sea By Observations Of The Moon

Why make a joke out of a niche and complex scientific problem? That is the question at the heart of this book, which unearths the rich and surprising history of trying to find longitude at sea in the eighteenth century. Not simply a history on water, this is the story of longitude on paper, of the discussions, satires, diagrams, engravings, novels, plays, poems and social anxieties that shaped how people understood longitude in William Hogarth’s London. We start from a figure in one of Hogarth’s prints – a lunatic incarcerated in the madhouse of A Rake’s Progress in 1735 – to unpick the visual, mental and social concerns which entwined around the national concern to find a solution to longitude. Why does longitude appear in novels, smutty stories, political critiques, copyright cases, religious tracts and dictionaries as much as in government papers? This sheds new light on the first government scientific funding body – the Board of Longitude – established to administer vast reward money for anyone who found a means of accurately measuring longitude at sea. Meet the cast of characters involved in the search for longitude, from famous novelists and artists to almost unknown pamphleteers and inventors, and see how their interactions informed the fate of longitude’s most famous pursuer, the clockmaker John Harrison.

This edited volume charts the history of celestial navigation over the course of five centuries. Written by a group of historians and scientists, it analyzes how competing navigation systems, technologies, and institutions emerged and developed, with a focus on the major players in the US and the UK. The history covers the founding of the Royal Observatory; the first printing of a Nautical Almanac; the founding of the US and UK Nautical Almanac Offices; the creation of international standards for reference systems and astronomical constants; and the impact of 20th century technology on the field, among other topics. Additionally, the volume analyzes the present role and status of celestial navigation, particularly with respect to modern radio and satellite navigation systems. With its diverse authorship and nontechnical language, this book will appeal to any reader interested in the history of science, technology, astronomy, and navigation over the ages.