The marine chronometer: its history and development - Hardcover

GOULD, Rupert T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0900470178 ISBN 13: 9780900470172

Publisher: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd, 1978

Synopsis

First published in 1923, this long-awaited edition of the definitive reference work on the marine chronometer contains additional photographs and many of Rupert Gould's later revisions and corrections. It deals comprehensively with the chronometers history and the earliest attempts to measure longitude while including exhaustive discussions and diagrams of the various mechanisms employed with details of their inventors. It is an extraordinary fact that the first machines capable of accurately determining a ship's longitude, a measurement the great Sir Isaac Newton considered to be a mechanical impossibility, were invented and built by an obscure Yorkshire carpenter named John Harrison (1693 1776). Amazingly, the latter was entirely self-educated and had never served a days apprenticeship to any clockmaker. The Marine Chronometer relates the remarkable story of John Harrison's marine timekeepers which eventually won him a %20,000 reward offered by the British Government for any method of determin

About this title

About the Author:

Rupert Thomas Gould (1890-1948) was not a professional horologist, yet he researched and wrote 'The Marine Chronometer' in just four years, between the ages of 29 and 33. A true English eccentric and a veritable polymath, Gould made important contributions in an extraordinary range of subject areas, from early typewriters to the Loch Ness Monster, from antiquarian horology to the history and rules of the game of tennis. He was an early broadcaster on radio, giving weekly talks on the BBC's 'Children's Hour' throughout the 1930s; as a member of the 1940s discussion programme 'The Brains Trust' he amazed a national audience with his wide learning and photographic memory. Yet, his greatest achievements were horological: his restoration of the great Harrison timekeepers and his authorship of so many fine texts on the history of horology are his true legacy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0900470178
• ISBN 13: 9780900470172
• Binding: Hardcover