04/22/2023
MS DAVA SOBEL
Longitude (1996)
Image courtesy of HarperCollins
There were Professors Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking with their clever blockbusters, The Selfish Gene and A Brief History Of Time, respectively. But then came a little-known science reporter for The New York Times, Ms Dava Sobel, who found herself inexplicably sat atop The Sunday Times’ bestseller list for months in 1996 – the wildcard of 1990s pop-sci literature.
Inexplicable only until you grabbed yourself a copy and found yourself lost in the original horological romp of our time: her account of how a clock-making Yorkshireman, Mr John Harrison, found himself up against the star-gazing noblemen of London in securing £20,000 from 1714’s Board of Longitude and ultimately saving countless lives at sea by enabling navigation east-to-west, using a precise on-board chronometer.
Rip-roaringly written, and infuriating in its account of the British government’s self-regarding obtuseness, Longitude: The True Story Of A Lone Genius Who Solved The Greatest Scientific Problem Of His Time was enough to inspire a BBC TV drama starring Sir Michael Gambon as Harrison.
See also Mr Jonathan Betts’ 2006 book Time Restored, which documents the Royal Observatory’s mission to save Harrison’s four trailblazing marine chronometers from the scrap heap in the 1920s and reanimate them for all to admire. They are now ticking along in London’s Greenwich Park, where longitude’s zero-degree Meridian line is bolted in brass.
