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

by BooksForBreakfast

In the eighteenth century, before the days of orbiting satellites, thousands of sailors had lost their lives when their ships were lost due to the world's sorry state of navigation. No one knew how to accurately determine a ship's longitude at sea. This would wreak economic havoc on maritime nations and quickly became the greatest scientific problem of the era. One man, John Harrison, dared to stand up to the scientific establishment in an attempt to create a solution to the problem of longitude. To understand the historical quest for longitude is to see the globe in a new light. This summary presents the most important highlights in a brief and easy to read format to give the reader a refresher from the full book.

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About the Publisher
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Want to read more books, but find it hard to find time in your busy schedule? Feeling intimidated by that 300+ page book you just bought? Interested in buying a book, but not sure if it's worth shelling out $15 for? Books for Breakfast condenses best-sellers down to their most important highlights and presents them in an easy to understand format. Get the most of your favorite books, in a fraction of the time; finish a book in the time it takes to eat breakfast!

31 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 5, 2016

Reviews

[Emilio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting account of the solving of the 'Longitude Problem'.

Full of interesting and nasty characters.

Amazing that it was so relatively recent! All that exploration done without benefit of a reliable method is astounding ... And no surprise knowing this that SO many ships and seamen were lost