25th June 2000
Yesterday (Saturday) Lucy and I decided to go shopping. By chance, we walked into a bookshop where I decided to head first for the computer books and then to the history/archeology section. It didn't take me too long to realise that the books on offer were far too expensive to purchase on a whim. Lucy met me at this history section after picking up a few books for herself, she noticed a book on the history "discount table" that she thought I would like. It was titled Longitude - "The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time". Seeing as the book looked interesting and was only £3.50 I thought I could do no worse and purchased the book.
I started reading it that night and couldn't put it down until I had finished it, I found it to be an amazing story and certainly gave me a perspective of just how clever this guy was.
Without going to far into the problem, Longitude was causing a huge problem for ships and their captains, a method for determining Latitude by use of the stars had already been figured out, but Longitude was proving to be a problem. Essentially to figure out Longitude you needed to know the time at a known longitude and the difference in time for yourself. This required clocks, good clocks, the error of most timepieces at the time was anywhere up to 15 minutes a day. The rotation of Jupiter's moon was one possible solution put forward but was difficult as jupiter's moons were not all that easy to track all the time.
At this point we welcome to history Mr. John Harrison a self taught Yorkshire clockmaker who over forty years of his life devoted himself to making the perfect timekeeper, which he managed to do and earned himself the £20,000 reward. Most of this story is centered in Greenwich where John Harrison spent a large number of his years. Also at Greenwich are the four Harrison timepieces kept at the Greenwich Royal Observatory.
As such, it came as a complete surprise to me when Lucy suggested we take a day trip out to Greenwich. I naturally agreed - thinking how great it would be to see the Harrison clocks (named H1 to H4). It took us a little over an hour to make our way out there by train. Unfortunately my digital camera batteries dies on me, so I feel a little guilty about not posting that many pictures...
 This red ball on top of the observatory rises up then drops down at midday every day, this was how ships in the harbour set their clocks before setting out |  The Cutty Sark, sits in dry dock. |
What was funny for me was walking around a town I had never been too but recognising street names, building names and understanding the layout of the town all from a £3.50 book. I had my photo taken (on my "normal" camera) standing over the international date line before touring the observatory. It a very interesting place but I felt that my enjoyment of it was mainly due to the fact that I had some knowledge of it's history. Unfortunately we had to leave all too soon but this is another thumbs up! It's a shame that we didn't get longer to look around and I don't think I'll be heading back this way during the rest of my trip. Still, if your ever in the area I urge you to seriosly consider dropping in and having a look around.