Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel

Author:Dava Sobel
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-07-05T06:00:00+00:00

10.

The Diamond

Time keeper

The cabinet is formed of gold

And pearl and crystal shining bright,

And within it opens into a world

And a little lovely moony night.

—WILLIAM BLAKE, “The Crystal Cabinet”

Rome wasn’t built in a day, they say. Even a small part of Rome, the Sistine Chapel, took eight years to construct, plus another eleven years to decorate, with Michelangelo sprawled atop his scaffolding from 1508 to 1512, frescoing scenes from the Old Testament on the ceiling. Fourteen years passed from the conception to the completion of the Statue of Liberty. The carving of the Mount Rushmore Monument likewise spanned a period of fourteen years. The Suez and Panama Canals each took about ten years to excavate, and it was arguably ten years from the decision to put a man on the moon to the successful landing of the Apollo lunar module.

It took John Harrison nineteen years to build H-3.

Historians and biographers cannot explain why Harrison—who turned out a turret clock in two years flat when he had scant experience to guide him, and who made two revolutionary sea clocks within nine years—should have lingered so long in the workshop with H-3. No one suggests that the workaholic Harrison dallied or became distracted. Indeed, there is evidence that he did nothing but work on H-3, almost to the detriment of his health and family, since the project kept him from pursuing most other gainful employment. Although he took on a few mundane clockmaking jobs to make ends meet, his recorded income during this period seems to have come entirely from the Board of Longitude, which granted him several extensions on his deadline and five payments of £500 each.

The Royal Society, which had been founded in the previous century as a prestigious scientific discussion group, rallied behind Harrison all through these trying years. His friend George Graham and other admiring members of the society insisted that Harrison leave his workbench long enough to accept the Copley Gold Medal on November 30, 1749. (Later recipients of the Copley Medal include Benjamin Franklin, Henry Cavendish, Joseph Priestley, Captain James Cook, Ernest Rutherford, and Albert Einstein.)

Harrison’s Royal Society supporters eventually followed the medal, which was the highest tribute they could confer, with an offer of Fellowship in the Society. This would have put the prestigious initials F.R.S. after his name. But Harrison declined. He asked that the membership be given to his son William instead. As Harrison must have known, Fellowship in the Royal Society is earned by scientific achievement; it cannot ordinarily be transferred, even to one’s next of kin, in the manner of a property deed. Nevertheless, William was duly elected to membership in his own right in 1765.

This sole surviving son of John Harrison took up his father’s cause. Though a child when the work on the sea clocks began, William passed through his teens and twenties in the company of H-3. He continued working faithfully with his father on the longitude timekeepers until he was forty-five years old, shepherding them through their trials and supporting the elder Harrison through his tribulations with the Board of Longitude.

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