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Wonders -- Harrison's timepiece
18th-century clockmaker William Harrison's invention might not stand as one of the great wonders in an architectural or sense nor evoke passions as a national symbol, but the tiny pocketwatch he designed had more of an impact on the world than many of the other wonder-nominated items/inventions.
Background: Navigators have always been able to determine their latitude by the position of the sun, but determining longitude was nearly impossible. Because of that, traveling the high seas was indeed risky business -- ships would arrive in a port only to find that they had sailed 1,000 miles of course. By devising a clock that could accurately keep time (the ultimate design only lost/gained a second or three over a couple months), Harrison gave navigators what had eluded them throughout mankind's sea-going history: the ability to pinpoint themselves exactly on a map. This not only leads to naval dominance but also trade advantages.
Anyone who's read Dava Sobel's "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genuis Who Solved the Greated Scientific Problem of His Time" or has seen the PBS docudrama on it would agree, I think.
Background: Navigators have always been able to determine their latitude by the position of the sun, but determining longitude was nearly impossible. Because of that, traveling the high seas was indeed risky business -- ships would arrive in a port only to find that they had sailed 1,000 miles of course. By devising a clock that could accurately keep time (the ultimate design only lost/gained a second or three over a couple months), Harrison gave navigators what had eluded them throughout mankind's sea-going history: the ability to pinpoint themselves exactly on a map. This not only leads to naval dominance but also trade advantages.
Anyone who's read Dava Sobel's "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genuis Who Solved the Greated Scientific Problem of His Time" or has seen the PBS docudrama on it would agree, I think.
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